Psychology - Forensic Psychology - Bottom up approach

Question 1

What is the bottom up approach?

Answer 1

UK, aims to generate a picture of the offender including likely characteristics, behaviours and social background

Question 2

How is a picture of the offender generated through the Bottom up approach?

Answer 2

Through a systematic analysis of evidence left at the crime scene. Emerges as the profiler engages in rigorous scrutiny of the details of the offence

Question 3

What is the aim of investigative psychology?

Answer 3

To establish a statistical database of behaviours which occur at the crime scene and the characteristics of offenders who carry these behaviours out

Question 4

How does investigative psychology work?

Answer 4

Specific details of an offence can be matched against this database in order to reveal statistically probable details about the offender. This also helps determine whether multiple offences are linked and likely to have been committed by the same person

Question 5

What is the central concept of investigative psychology?

Answer 5

Interpersonal coherence

Question 6

What does the concept of interpersonal coherence look at?

Answer 6

The way the offender behaves at the crime scene is similar to how they behave in everyday life

Question 7

How do rapists often show interpersonal coherence?

Answer 7

Some want to control and humiliate their victim and others are apologetic and this may tell the police how the offender relates to women generally

Question 8

What is also a key variable to the bottom up approach?

Answer 8

The significance of time and place (indicates where they are based)

Question 9

How does forensic awareness give insight about the criminal in the bottom up approach?

Answer 9

If individuals have made an attempt to cover their tracks then their behaviour may indicate that they have been the subject of police interrogation before or that they already have their DNA

Question 10

Geographical profiling

Answer 10

Study of spatial behaviour in relation to crime focusing on where the offender lives works and socialises

Question 11

What data is relevant to geographical profiling?

Answer 11

The crime scene, local crime statistics, local transport and geographical spread of simile crimes

Question 12

What is assumed from geographical profiling?

Answer 12

A serious offender will restrict their criminal activities to an area they are familiar with and the offenders base will therefore be on the middle of the spatial pattern of their crime scenes

Question 13

Who proposed the two models of offender behaviour?

Answer 13

Canter and Larkin (1993)

Question 14

What two models of offender behaviour did Canter and Larkin (1993) propose?

Answer 14

The marauder and the commuter

Question 15

What can the spatial pattern of the crime tell the police other than where the offender lives?

Answer 15

Whether it was planned or opportunistic and their mode of transport, employment status and approximate age

Question 16

What are the advantages of bottom up approach?

Answer 16

+ It’s more scientific than top-down due to more evidence + Can be applied to a wide variety of offences

Question 17

What are the disadvantages of the bottom up approach?

Answer 17

• significant failure in the Nickell-Napper case - Copson (1995) - Kocsis et al (2002)

Question 18

How did bottom up profiling fair in the Nickell-Napper case?

Answer 18

In 1992, 21 year old Rachel Nickell was stabbed 47 times and sexually assaulted on Wimbledon Common. In 2008 after forensic examination, Robert Napped was convicted and had been ruled out early initially due to being several inches taller than the profile claimed

Question 19

Copson (1995)

Answer 19

• 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

Question 20

Kocsis et al (2002)

Answer 20

Found that chemistry students produced a more accurate offender profile on a solved murder case than experienced senior detectives using bottom up