Paper 3 - Forensic Psychology - Theories Of Offending Flashcards
Define crime
an act committed in a violation of the law where the consequence of conviction by court is punishment possibly jail time
State some stats
In 2020 there was a 20% increase in domestic aggression
100 murders in the UK since start of lockdown until end of 2023`
What are the 2 main catagories in the problems with defining crime?
Cultural and Historical
Explain the problem with defining crime: Cultural
Different cultures have different crimes
Forced marriage was made illegal in the UK in 2014, however it is practice i other countries
Explain the problem with defining crime: Historical
Things may have changed from being a crime to being legal
Homosexuality is still illegal in many parts of the world and was only made legal in the UK since 1967. A parent could still smack their child was outlawed in 2004
In the UK at what age can you be charged with a crime
10
What are the 3 ways of measuring crime
Official statistics
Victim surveys
Offender surveys
Explain the way of measuring crime: Official Statistics
How can they be used
Reported crime is recorded as official figures that allow the government to formulate plans to try to reduce future crime and to formulate police initiatives. These are published by the Home Office as a “snapshot” of the number of crime committed across the country.
Explain the way of measuring crime: Victim Surveys
These are the publics experience of crime over a particular period
Normally over 50000 HH are chosen randomly to report crime that they have been a victim of in the past year. This data is them compiled in the Crime Survey for England and Wales
Explain the ways of measuring crime: Convicts Surveys
This is when individuals self report on the types of crime that they have committed. Its aim is to try and identify trends in offending and the relationships perpetrators and victims
What are the evaluative points of Official Statistics
They are more unreliable as they significantly underestimate the true extent of crime
• only 25% of offences are included in the official statistics
• 75% is referred to by criminologists as the “dark figures of crime” (unreported crime)
• There are many factors that would effect reporting of crime
• Farrington and Dowds (1985) - found that in Nottingham petty crime were reported more than in the surrounding areas
Urban areas reported more crime than rural areas.
What are the official rape stats?
Rape offence increased substantially, reaching a high of 70,00 offences in the 2021/22 reporting year, before falling slightly to 69,000 in the 2022/23
What are the evaluations of Victim Surveys
Greater degree of accuracy (although still full of SDB)
■ 2006/7 official statistics suggested a 2% decrease in crime from the year before-
■ But 2007-2019 average of 3% increase
■ Recall- telescoping could distort figures
■ Telescoping - The telescoping effect refers to inaccurate perceptions regarding time, where people see recent events as more remote than they are (backward telescoping), and remote events as more recent (forward telescoping). This mental error in memory can occur whenever we make temporal assumptions regarding past events
What are the evaluations of offender surveys?
It may provide insight into why people commit crimes and how many people are responsible for certain crimes
But they have so subject to SDB
- Lawrence and Perry (2018) they suggested that most offenders do not admit to their crimes, giving us unrealistic statistics.
What are white colar crimes?
White collar crimes involve money, for example, money laundering and fraud (typically known as middle class crimes)
What are blue colar crimes
blue collar crimes are petty crimes such as theft (known as lower economic status crimes)
What is a negative evaluation of all of measuring crime
The extraneous variable of politics
Define offender profiling
a behavioural and analytical tool that is intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown criminals.
Generally state what offender profiling is
Generally: narrow down the field of enquiry and the suspect pool then analyses the crime scene and evidence, then generate hypothesis eg age gender, ethnicity
What is the american approach also known as?
The top down approach
Explain the top down approach
profilers start with a pre- established typology and work down in order to assign offenders to one of two categories based on witness accounts and evidence from the crime scene.
Using previous data from crime to create typologies. The current crime scene is analysed and matched with the closest typology to narrow down the field of potential suspects?.?.
What is a disadvantage of the top down approach
The profiler needs to have experience and can use the evidence at the crime scene to develop a profile of the likely criminal.
Explain the study* about the american approach?
FBI 1970s Behavioural science unit gathered data from in depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated killers. They were able to organise these criminals into 1 of 2 categories: 1) Organised 2) Disorganised
Explain category 1
Organised
These people:
Used planned attacks with deliberate pre chosen targets (eg Ted Bundy). They had above average intelligence, were socially and sexually competent
They had a high degree of control and worked with detached surgical precision
Little evidence left behind
Explain category 2
Disorganised
They were spontaneous, impulsive, spur of the moment attackers who didn’t plan out their attacks.
They tended to have a lower IQ and were socially and sexually dysfunctional
What are the 4 main stages of offender profiling in the top down approach?
Explain each one
Data assimilation (collection of data)
Crime scene classification (type of crime)
Crime reconstruction (including the behaviours of both the offender and victim)
Profile generation - making inferences about the physical nd lifestyle characteristics of the offender
Have are the evaluations of the top down approach
Flawed
Outdated models of personality
Insufficient models of personality
Insufficient evidence to suggest a disordered offender
Reductionism
Methodological issues
Explain the evaluations of the top down approach: Flawed
Typology is limited in terms of crimes. Does not include other types of crime, which could lead to under investigation and punishments.
Explain the evaluations of the top down approach: Outdated models of personality
Typology classification system is based on assumption of patterns of behaviour and motivations that remain consistent.
Alison et al (2002)- approach is naïve and informed by old- fashioned models of personality
- Behaviour as being driven by dispositional traits
- Poor validity and static
Explain the negative explanation of the top down approach:
Insufficient evidence to suggest a disorganised offender
Canter et al. (2004) smallest space analysis technique
- Analysed data from 100 murders in the USA
- Examined with reference to 39 characteristics typical of O or D killers
- No evidence for disorganised killers
Explain the negative explanation of the top down approach: Reductions
This typology assumed that people are one or the other and can’t be a mixture (the events aren’t mutually exclusive)
Godwin (2002) how would police classify a highly intelligent and sexually competent killer who commits a spontaneous murder, where the body is left at the scene
- Holmes (1989) and Holmes and DeBurger (1998)- 4 types of serial killer: visionary, mission, hedonistic and power/control
- Keppel and Walter (1999)- they tried to investigate the motivations of killers. To see if this created new typologies.
Explain the negative explanation of the top down approach: Methodology
Original typology – 25 serial killers and 11 either single or double murderers
- Too small and unrepresentative
- Canter - not sensible to rely on self report data of convicted killers (Criticism of Holmes and the serial killer types)
What is the bottom up approach also known as?
The british approach
Define the bottom up approach?
Bottom-up approach is when research and statistics of similar crimes are used to develop a profile of the criminal, based on previous convictions.
What is investigative psychology?
This is about Applying statistical procedures and psychological theory to analyse crime scene evidence.
Describe the bottom up approach+
- Patterns of behaviour that occur or co-exist
- Create a statistical data base with a baseline for comparison.
- Interpersonal coherence- the way the offender behaves at the scene, including how they interact with the victim, may reflect their behaviour in more everyday situations
- Forensic awareness- describes those individuals who have been subjects of police interrogation before; their behaviour may denote how mindful they are of ‘covering their tracks’
What is the aim of geographical profiling?
The aim of this is to try and figure out where the perpetrators home or “base of operations is”
How may geographical profiling work?
- Using information about the location of the crime scene to make inferences about the likely home or operational base of an offender- crime mapping
- Used to create hypotheses about what the offender was thinking and their modus operandi
What is the core assumption of bottom up profiling?
The existence of a modus operandi
What is an MO?
Modus Operandi
This is an idea that serial offenders restrict their ‘work’ to geographical areas they are familiar with and that criminals often operate in a similar way and this reflects their personality.
What does an MO allow to happen?
Provides investigators with a ‘centre of gravity’
- Includes their base (often in the middle of the spatial pattern)
- which allows investigators to determine a Jeopardy surface- educated guesses about where the offender is likely to strike next
What is circle theory
They identified two models of offenders behaviour
1) The Marauder - they operate in close proximity to their home base
2) The Commuter - they are likely to have traveled a distance from their home base
What are the key questions in circle theory?
■ What happened at the crime scene(s)?
■ Who would have committed that/ those crimes?
■ What kind of personality would that person have had?
■ Occupation? Education?
What are the positive evaluations of the Bottom Up Approach
John Duffy Case Study
Evidence for investigative psychology
Evidence for Geographical profiling
Evidence to support the bottom down approach
Police opinions
What are the negative evaluations for Bottom Up Approach
Police opinions
Mixed results for profiling
Explain the positive evaluation of the bottom up approach: John Duffy Case Study
John Duffy (aka the Railway Rapist) was responsible for 24 sexual assaults and 3 murders between 1982-86. Canter was asked to creare a offenders profile:
Explain the positive evaluation of the bottom up approach: evidence for investigative psychology
Canter and Heritage (1990) conducted a content analysis of 66 sexual assault cases.
- Common in most cases: Impersonal language and lack of reaction to victim (impersonal and sudden)
- Supports the use of statistical techniques in profiling.
Explain the positive evaluation of the bottom up approach: Evidence for geographical profiling
Lundrigan and Canter (2001) collated information from 120 murder cases involving serial killers in the USA.
- Smallest space analysis: the location of each body disposal site was in a different direction from the previous, creating a ‘centre of gravity’
- The offender’s base was invariably located in the centre of the pattern
- More noticeable for marauders
Explain the positive evaluation of the bottom up approach: Evidence for the bottom up approach
Canter: bottom down profiling is more objective and scientific than top down approach, as it is grounded in evidence and psychological theory
With the use of AI, investigators are able to manipulate geographical, biographical and psychological data quickly to produce insights.
eXtra: smallest space analysis can be applied to different crimes such as theft (Top down is generally murder)
Explain the mixed evaluation of the bottom up approach
Abumere (2012) found more than 75% of the British police officers who were asked said that the advice of the profiler had been useful to them in making predictions about the crime. For them, the advice improved their understanding of the offender.
■ Other police officers also stated that it supported their ideas and feelings about the offender.
■ Police from the Netherlands stated that they found the profiler’s advice as vague, that it was not financially viable, and that it needed follow up work. They also ignored advice if they didn’t agree with it.
Explain the negative evaluations of the bottom up approach: Mixed results for profiling
examining the effectiveness have mixed results
- Copson (1995) surveyed 48 police forces and found that the advice provided by the profiler was judged to be ‘useful’ in 83% of cases but in only 3% did it lead to accurate identification of the offender
- Kocsis et al. (2002) argued there is little empirical research into the skills required for profiling– chemistry students.
Explain the case of Miss Nickell
1992, 21 years old
Stabbed 47 times with her 2 year old son the only witness
They used profiling to create a suspect then did an expensive undercover operation to try and get a confession
When it went to court it was dismissed immediately for lack of evidence
In 2008, after new evidence Napper was convicted (he was ruled out previously as he was a few inches too tall)
What was even more surprising about the case of Miss Nickell
Napper had also attacked another women with her child present before Nickell and raped another in her home. This was a unique crime which aren’t spotted (complete failure)
