Test 3 Lecture Notes so far

Question 1

a technique for identifying the major personality and behavioural characteristics of an individual based on the analysis of the crimes he or she has committed

Answer 1

criminal profiling

Question 2

profiling is getting info about the suspect when you don’t have ____

Answer 2

witnesses

Question 3

are profilers only used to catch the perp?

Answer 3

no, sometimes they are hired to find a motive even when you have someone in custody

Question 4

what do we need in order to develop a profile

Answer 4

consecutive crimes

Question 5

what types of crimes/ppl are usually profiled?

Why?

Answer 5

serial killers and serial rapists
- The anticipation of it happening again is why you develop a profile
- Fear of escalation
○ Also there is an investment in the profiling - costs money
(Wouldn’t do this for one offs)

Question 6

when does criminal profiling date back to? How do we know this?

Answer 6

Dates back to 15th century (1400s)

With the book “Malleus Maleficarum”

Question 7

Explain:

• what Malleus Maleficarm is
• who the authors were
• what authority the authors had
• what did it contain?
• what it was used for?

Answer 7

Book that tells us about witches and how to find them

Authors by themselves had no authority, but pope gave them an official document that ‘verified’ they were inquisitors

contained profile of witches:
strong personality, does not cry at trial
cause all damage In town (prevents conception, baby deaths, life stalk injuries, storms, etc._

Used in the Salem witch trials (17th century)

Question 8

who developed the profile of Jack the Ripper? How did they do this

Answer 8

Dr. Phillips and Dr. Bond

they investigated victims, crime scenes, and wounds

Question 9

who was jack the ripper and what did he do

Answer 9

murderer

• generally targeted prostitutes on London streets
• brutal murders committed in public
• was never caught

Question 10

who profiled jack the ripper and what did their profile contain?

Answer 10

Dr. Phillips and Dr. Bond

• quiet and harmless looing
• wore a cloak
• probably promiscuous or hypersexual
• neat and clean looking

Question 11

what is the profile that is referred to when justifying profiling in the first place

Answer 11

the mad bomber

Question 12

describe what the mad bomber do

Answer 12

• Starting planting bombs around New York City - planted 333, 22 exploded
  -Ones that didn’t explode had some problems with them
• Ppl were terrified
  • Looks like he actually tried to avoid injury ppl but more so destroy property and ensue terror
  • Notes on Unexploded bombs about Con Edison - Power company complaining
  • Brief stop during WWII, he wrote a note to newspaper about this
• made larger and larger bombs (escalation)
• mostly after the war he escalated

Question 13

what were some not-obvious things about the profile of the mad bomber by Dr. James

Answer 13

§ Not interested in women
§ Suffered from heart disease
§ When you catch him he will be wearing like a double-breasted suit, buttoned

Question 14

who is the man called the mad bomber? describe him

Answer 14

George mateski

• old employee at a power company
• had a disease
• was 54
• paranoid
• military
• loner
• foreigner
• catholic
• not interested in women

Question 15

where are the profiling jobs in canada

Answer 15

only really at the national level

Question 16

criticisms of profiling: trait model

Answer 16

• cases based on classic trait model but sometimes there are traits we don’t see in the crime. Perhaps the person has multiple personalities
• trait models don’t work day to day
• weather analogy: trait models are like climate models that don’t tell you the day-to-day weather
  if crimes are committed only when the weather is bad then you’re gonna have a hard time finding the perp based on the trait model

Question 17

criticism of profiling: applicable info and expertise

Answer 17

• sometimes the info in a profile is so vague anyone could say that profile fits them
• sometimes it is thought that profilers don’t have any more expertise than a bartender or a psychic

Question 18

who is the amazing randy?

Answer 18

Amazing Randy
- magician who taught ppl the tricks
- did a thing:
- gave personal astrology profiles to all students in a class with their name on it
- asked: read and raise your hand if it applies to you
-about 2/3 of ppl raised their hand
then students were asked to put profile back in envelope and pass it back, and read the new one you receive
- everyone started laughing bc all the envelopes had the same profile in them

Question 19

What was the study by Kocsis et al (2000)

Answer 19

Investigated whether criminal profilers were good at developing profiles
- comparison groups: psychologists, police officers, students, psychics
- all groups given the report of an assault case, forensic biologist info, basic victim info, photos and then were told to develop a profile using a 45 item MP questionnaire so they were all of same detail
also given an adjective checklist (ACL) describing the offender
results: all scores fairly similar, profilers slightly slightly better but overall, no group was very good

Question 20

How to become a profiler in Canada

Answer 20

its within the behavioural science branch of the RCMP

- you first have to be a police officer

Question 21

what is ViCLAS

Answer 21

A database of crimes
- When there is commonality amongst the crimes - they check where they are - to see if there is a serial offender travelling the country
- there are ViCLAS specialiststhat look at the data
- Started in Canada but now a lot of other countries use this
- Isn’t of making clinical judgements they can make statistical ones
- Some ppl argue this database should be provided to scientistsso further research can be done with this kind of data no scientist has had access to in the past
How its done:
- Once a crime is solved, a separate questionnaire about the offender is filled out and filed linked to the offences
- RCMP refuses to license it to other countries to do this, and doesn’t allow us to do this

Question 22

What are the class of sex assault? What are the sentences?

Answer 22

Class 1 
- minor injuries or no injuries
- indecent exposure
Class 1 Sentence: 
- maxes at 10 yeas
- sometimes given summary offence (max 2 years)

Class 2
- sexual assault with a weapon, threats or causing bodily harm
Class 2 Sentence: Max 14 years

Class 3: Aggravated sex assault

• results in wounding, maiming, disfiguring or endangering life of victim
• Class 3: Sentence
• max is life in prison

Question 23

What is the SAQ? What was the result of “experts”

Answer 23

Sex Assault Questionnaire

• used in university settings to assess the knowledge of security officers at the universities
• they found knowledge to be profoundly lacking
• campus police in US averaged 11/18 (just a bit more than guessing which was the average of non-experts)

Question 24

Should sexual assault trials have expert witnesses? why?

Answer 24

Yes
R v Mohan
- the expert has to assist the trier of fact, and should assert themselves in system if they ca assist trier of fact

Question 25

Where did rape trauma syndrome come from in terms of the name

Answer 25

a study done by Burgess and Homstrom (1974)

Question 26

Explain Burgess and Holmstrom (1974) study

- not rape trauma symptoms itself

Answer 26

92 women who were victims of rape
ages 17-73
-various backgrounds, some pregnant, some had just given birth, older, younger etc.

enrolled in study within 30 minutes of arriving at hospital

• found to have common symptoms and the way they were expressed
• eventually, most women recovered and successfully reorganized their lives but all had lingering difficulty and thoughts that all men could be rapists

Question 27

Explain the symptoms of rape trauma syndrome and the duration of symptoms

Answer 27

Acute and Long-term

Acute: the disorganized phase 
Duration: 1 month, 1 year, depends
- physical trauma
- skeletal tension (physically measured but stems from head)
- complete change in daily patterns
- gastro issues
- regression to helplessness and dependence
- denial, shock, disbelief,
- paranoia

Long-term: The reorganization phase 
Duration: Years
- nightmares
- phobias
disturbances in general functioning(ex: sleep differently than pre assault)
- sexual problems
- changes in lifestyle

Question 28

What is PTSD primary vs PTSD secondary and how is it related to sex assault

Answer 28

PTSD primary

• repeated experience of traumatic event or (in contrast) avoidance of situations, ideas, and feelings related to event
• symptoms could be related to sex assault symptoms but they aren’t mentioned

PTSD secondary
- difficulty concentrating
difficult with sleep
- exaggerated startled responses
-symptoms are more similar to that of sex assault victims

PTSD is used more than RTS

• PTSD is in DSM, has good diagnostic instruments, covers main symptoms of RTS
• problem: doe snot cover depression, anger, sexual dysfunction

Question 29

what do expert witnesses talk about in sex assault cases

Answer 29

consent
victim behaviour
damages (in civil cases, rarely goes to court)

Question 30

how is lombroso

Answer 30

probably the first person to look at blood pressure cuff to see if someone was lying

founder of atadism, the movement that criminality could be bred out of the human species

Question 31

who is martson

Answer 31

called himself the father of the penumograph (primitive polygraph, primarily blood pressure) even though he wasn’t actually the inventor

• he invented wonder woman and her lasso of truth
  he told police departments he could verify whether someone was telling the truth or not with 90% accuracy- he knew he had made many mistakes but just thought his optimism would pay off

Question 32

over the years: use of polygrraph

Answer 32

until late 80s, primary use was employee testing (more in US)

• now illegal to do so
• was allowed in court
• now no longer allowed in court although investigations still use it

Question 33

Three main techniques of polygraph: list them

Answer 33

1) relevant/irrelevant test
2) OQT
3) CIT

Question 34

What is the technique “relevant/irrelevant test” for the polygraph

Answer 34

most primitive technique
not used much
asks irrelevant questions and relevant questions are compares physiological responses of people
- most often now used on Dr. Phil

Question 35

What is the technique “CBT” of the polygraph

Answer 35

comparison question test

• has relevant and irrelevant questions but also has control questions that are supposed to be emotionally arousing and something we know the truth of
• helps confounds to test relevant/irrelevant
• comparison questions are usually something that the individual doesn’t have a reason to lie about - and are tailored to that person
• most common technique worldwide

Question 36

What is the technique “CIT” of the polygraph

Answer 36

most advance

• theoretically someone doesn’t even have to respond to get a result in this test
• asks question with multiple choice answer, reads out answers one at a time and pause after each one, at the end the person picks their answer
• look at physiological responses, not at persons chosen answer
• why isn’t it used more? harder to make up questions and you have to know a lot about a case before using this test

Question 37

why can’t we use field studies to test polygraph validation

Answer 37

harder to do but based on getting data from actual polygraphs - court cases where a polygraph was used. It cant be used in court. See if the person was guilty and the polygraph said they were guilty then that is a success
○ Problem: being convicted doesn’t mean you’re actually guilty

Question 38

what was the result of CBT Lab studies that tested the validation of the polygraph

Answer 38

Included false negative rate and false positive rate from a number of studies.
They do not suggest that a polygraph is very accurate

There’s a 1/5 chance that if you are telling the truth the polygraph will say you’re lying

Question 39

explain the CQT field study that looks at polygraph validation
Barland & Raskin

Answer 39

a study many polygraphers talk about

• but it shows false posiitves
• and sometimes the polygraph says no I think they are lying even though the polygraph say they are telling the truth

Question 40

what did we find by looking at the best field studies of CGT polygraphs? Are they reliable?

Answer 40

less so the polygraph, more so the polygrapher

–> since blind graders make more errors

Question 41

ways to beat a polygraph? are they successful? How do we know

Answer 41

physical - bite tongue
mental - count backwards by 7

these are successful as shown by Honts, raskin, and kirchner

Question 42

Lab studies that looked at CIT Polygraph validation

Answer 42

Ben-Shakher and Elaad(2003)
false positives were very low
but more liers would slip through fingers - high flase negative

Then Flass added more autonomic measures - measure respiration - flase negatives went down a lot, but flase positives went up a bit

Question 43

can a polygraph tell if people are psychopaths or non-psychopaths

Answer 43

not really.

there wasn’t much of a difference in using the polygraph to see if ppl are lying or not with psychopaths and non-psychopaths

Question 44

what did the study by Patrick and iacono say

Answer 44

group contingency threat
- in real life, there is consequences for the polygraph, so in a corrections facility study they had to make this consequence up
- In this study they had a bunch of ppl sign up for it in a corrections facility and they were told that there was a bonus they would get for doing this
Told - you have to come in and convince this perosn you are telling the truth. If you succed and everyone else succeeds everyone gets the bonus. But if you fail not only does the group not get the bonus but we will tell everyone you failed - increases the stales

Question 45

what did the NRC in 2003 say about the polygraph

Answer 45

physiological response happen all the time for all kinds of reasons. its just not a very accurate device

Question 46

Describe the R v Beland 1978

Answer 46

polygraph admissibility case
§ Charge of conspiracy to commit a crime- robbery
§ Only evidence was testimony of accomplices- (Hinged on witness credibility)
§ Tried to introduce polygraph evidence
§ Re- established rules against oath helping (bolstering credibility) à cant do oath helping in court
· Argued to certain extent, b/c polygrapher not a fact witness, what they are doing is oath helping
· Trying to show that accomplices making accusation were truthful- not permitted
§ concern that juries are inordinately influenced by the fact that the polygraph is imbued with the “mystique of science” (aura of infallibility)
· bias may make polygraph less accurate
· jury may be influenced by scientific backing
§ crowns case based on accom`plice’s lack of credibility- entire case
· made specific argument to the case
§ if whole case hinges on credibility maybe it should be allowed

Question 47

what is “aura of infallibility?”

Answer 47

see if polygraph has impact o jurers
- current research says there is so far little effect on jurors

however, if the case hinges on believability of a criminal it may have an effect

Question 48

accuracy of the polygraph?

Answer 48

selective reporting but accurate 97% of time in telling if someone is lying

o polygraphers tend not to report how many times decide lie when person innocent= 55% people reference study for credibility but may not actually show this

ASK SAM ABOUT THIS

Question 49

what is the ERP-P300

Answer 49

measured shift in voltage occurring at particular time after an event

• associate with surprise
• not great evidence this works - noisy measure

Question 50

FMRI?

Answer 50

blood flow
may be a lie centre in the brain that activates when lying (prefrontal and parietal areas explored)
- but… requires person is cooperative to perform, even if they move it destroys the data
- requires person to listen to instructions
- and eventually if ran too long, it wont draw blood flow anymore bc it habituates to signal issues

Question 51

behavioural cues that may tell if someone is lying

Answer 51

facial temp, cheeks flushed = may be lying
- used in airports and catches liars but also catches innocent ppl

vocal stress analysis - doesn’t seem to work, easier to turn off sound and look at body movement

tone of voice and vocal cues
- some best ways to tell if lying listen to what they say,

Question 52

Vrji, Mann & Fisher (2006)

Answer 52

an empirical test of the behavioural analysis interview (what police are trained with)
- called BAI or REID technique

Experiment:

• asked uni students to tell a convincing story about a complicated scenario and to convinve interviewer of story
• had ppl rate using BAI from 1-5 as a guide, with lower scores indicating lying
• REID technique is biased towards saying someone telling the truth is lying
• truth tellers are more likely to be rated as liars than actual liars

Question 53

what are some BAI assumption

Answer 53

• liars are less helpful and unconcerned about being a suspect
• liars exhibit more nervous behaviours
• guilty suspects know answers quickly and sound less sincere.
• motive questions cause liars to shift position bc they will be uncomfortable
• guilty suspects may name an innocent person as a suspect
• guilty suspects are less likely to admit a crime has taken place and that they had opportunity to commit crime
• guilty suspects are though to express less confidence in being exonerated and are less likely to have informed loved ones of their interview

Question 54

who was the forensic psychologist who had a show made about them

Answer 54

paul ekman

show: lie to me

Question 55

what are some things ppl commonly think are universally communicative but are not? is there anything that is universally communicative? how do you know?

Answer 55

what aren’t:

• spoken/written language
• gestures

are:
facial expressions
- know because Ekman did military research that allowed him to visit tribes untouched by society, in new ginea, asked them to identiy faces, and took pictures of them

Question 56

what is the FACS

Answer 56

facial action coding system

- A book published in 1976 has been revised since
- They describe 10 000 possible facial expressions
- When first published, physiologists and anatomists argued it can't be right since you cant do these things but turns out you can
- With 40 muscles you can come up with 10 000 facial expressions

Question 57

who found “microexpressions”? What did they think of them?

Answer 57

Paul Ekman
thought they may be geuine expressions that ccur when we don’t want to show how we actually feel
- idea: maybe secret service are just naturally good at detecting microexpressions!

Question 58

Explain the study by porter and ten Brinke (2008)

Answer 58

looked at identifying concealed and falsified emotions in universal facial expressions

• simulated expression: neutral object, person told to show expression
  masked: show emotive object, person asked to show different expression
  neutralized: person asked to show a neutral expression
• ppl were videoed, and the recordings were looked at to try to count microexpresisons
  result: not much evidence of microexpressions