profilarea infractorului

Question 1

what is offender profiling

Answer 1

the practice of inferring an offender’s characteristics from crime scene behaviour.

Question 2

what type of assumptions are made

Answer 2

what happened at the crime scene?

what type of person is most likely to have committed the crime?

what personality characteristics would such a person have?

Assumption: behaviours are exhibited during the commission of a crime and are reflected in the crime scene evidence that is left behind. Therefore, examination of the crime scene allows inferences to be made about the likely offender.

Question 3

2. what is another assumption of offender profiling?

Answer 3

Behavioural consistency.

offenders have relatively distinct and consistent behavioural styles

Question 4

3. what is another assumption of offender profiling

Answer 4

Homology.

offenders with similar behavioural styles have similar background characteristics

Question 5

According to Jeffers (1991) offender profiling will never…

Answer 5

• take the place of thorough, well planned investigations
• eliminate the need for highly trained and skilled police officers

Question 6

what are the 3 approaches to offender profiling?

Answer 6

Crime scene analysis

Investigative psychology

Geographic profiling

Question 7

1. what is crime scene analysis

Answer 7

assists police in solving the most bizarre and extreme crimes

offers a top-down approach to offender profiling

uses the experience and intuition of the profiler to interpret the crime scene

Question 8

2. what is investigate psychology

Answer 8

applied to a wider range of crimes including burglary and arson

offers a bottom-up approach to offender profiling

uses psychological theory and research to interpret evidence from the crime scene

Question 9

3. what is geographic profiling

Answer 9

situated within the investigative psychology framework

uses the locations of crimes to estimate the offender’s area of residence

Question 10

1. Crime scene analysis in more DETAIL

Answer 10

• Profiling inputs: collection of all available information about the crime
• Decision process model: information is organised and consideration is given to the murder type and style, primary intent, victim risk, offender risk, escalation, time factors and location factors
• Crime assessment: reconstruction of the crime and categorisation as organised and disorganised

Question 11

1. Crime scene analysis - what are the 2 types of offender

Answer 11

Organised offender - planned, victims systematically targeted, weapons absent, body transported or hidden. Reasonably intelligent, underachiever, sporadic education and employment history, in a relationship, socially adept at a superficial level

Disorganised offender - unplanned, victims randomly selected, weapon present, same murder and crime scene. Low intelligence, psychiatric disturbance, socially inept with few interpersonal relationship outside of the immediate family, sexually incompetent

Question 12

crime scene analysis - crime profile

Answer 12

information is pulled together and the profile is constructed

includes hypotheses regarding likely demographic and behavioural characteristics

may include recommendations for identification, apprehension and interviewing

Question 13

crime scene analysis - investigation

Answer 13

submission of a written report to the agency investigating crime

evaluation of the profile and profiling if a suspect is identified, apprehended and confesses

Question 14

2. Investigate psychology - assumptions

Answer 14

Assumptions

1. Interpersonal coherence - the perpetration of crimes will reflect behaviour in everyday life
2. Time and place - crime locations provide information about area of residence
3. Criminal characteristics - offender characteristics can be classified into categories
4. Criminal career - the perpetration of similar crimes can be used to identify probable criminal careers
5. Forensic awareness - reflects contact with the justice system

Question 15

investigative psychology

Answer 15

Less common crime scene and offender characteristics could be classified into three underlying themes:

1. Instrumental opportunistic: face hidden, multiple wounds in one areas, premises of the victim
2. Instrumental cognitive: face up, blunt instrument, body transported
3. Expressive impulsive: limbs attacked, multiple wounds all over the body

Question 16

3. Geographic profiling - principles

Answer 16

Locatedness - crime locations provide information about the offender’s area of residence

Systematic crime location choice - the locations where crimes occur are not random

Centrality - crimes are most likely to occur in locations where the offender is familiar

Comparative case analysis (linking crimes) - the more crimes, the stronger the application of geographic profiling

Question 17

3. geographic profiling - investigative strategies

Answer 17

suspect prioritisation and patrol saturation and static stakeholders. prioritise suspects and direct the use of police patrols and stakeout

neighbourhood canvassing and postal code prioritisation. direct door-to-door canvassing particular areas and rank address databases

bloodings. direct the DNA testing of potential suspects in postal area that have been prioritised

Question 18

Evaluation of crime scene analysis

Answer 18

lacks a clear theoretical foundation

over relies on the experience and intuition

based on a small sample of imprisoned serial murderers

weakness of non-exclusivity of the organised-disorganised typology

Question 19

evaluation of investigative psychology and geographic profiling

Answer 19

based on limited samples of apprehended offenders

poor quality for the development and testing of the approach

Question 20

effectiveness of offender profiling - accuracy

Answer 20

real case involving the brutal murder and mutilation of a young woman

police officers received a profile together with one of two versions of the offender’s characteristics

version 1. genuine offender
version 2. fabricated offender

profiles differed according to age, known victim, employment, previous convictions

over 75% somewhat accurate and over 50% generally or very accurate

Question 21

effectiveness of offender profiling - behavioural consistency

Answer 21

offenders relatively consistent in the types of crime they commit and the behavioural styles they adopt

Question 22

effectiveness of offender profiling - homology

Answer 22

little support for this assumption

offenders with different behavioural styles often have similar background characteristics

Question 23

effectiveness of offender profiling - general consensus

Answer 23

Profiling could have an important role to play in criminal investigations

Most useful. In the context of bizarre and extreme cases or in serial cases

Least useful. In the context of property or drug crimes

Question 24

limitations of offender profiling

Answer 24

Offender profiling is reductive rather than productive

Potential for inaccurate profiles to mislead investigations

Utility of profiles in the apprehension of offenders is still unknown

Question 25

challenges of offender profiling

Answer 25

Increased understanding. Needs to be a greater understanding between police officers and offender profilers Appropriate framework. Needs to be agreement regarding the appropriate framework for offender profiling Explanatory theory. There needs to be an explanatory theory that accounts for the relationship between offender and crime characteristics

Question 26

other contributions to the investigative process

Answer 26

Suspect prioritisation. To reduce the time spent on irrelevant suspicions and provide an evidence-based approach to developing lines of enquiry Linking crimes and crime scenes. To determine whether two or more crime scenes are likely to have been perpetrated by the same offender or offenders Interviewing process. To prepare police officers for what they might expect to psychologically from an offender Risk assessment of offenders in clinical settings. To inform risk assessments on the basis of an objective, evidence-based, reconstruction of the offence process (as opposed to the offender’s subjective perspective)

Question 27

ethical concerns

Answer 27

forensic awareness gives major advantages to the offender The reading of academic papers concerning theory and research can help offenders become more forensically aware. There needs to be a balance between the need for open communication and debate, with the possible consequence of educating the offender.