Week 5 Flashcards
Psychological Profiling
Psychological profiling is the scientific analysis of trace psychological evidence in order to assist with the detection, suppression, and knowledge of criminal behaviour. Psychological profiling is used in:
the detection of offenders the distribution of resources (e.g. patrols) public education and safety.
Psychological profiling uses models and theories related to abnormal psychology (including psychological disorders) and normal psychology (including decision making). To be successful, criminal profilers must be able to effectively combine these techniques with acute personal insight.
Profiling Models - describe the profiling process for two different models
Profiling models are applied to the search for serial offenders (categorised as an offender with three or more separate yet related events).
Generally, Australia makes use of two psychological profiling models:
The clinical model—FBI (US)
This model aims to create a psychological profile of the offender.
The experimental/statistical model (UK)
This model aims to create a statistically based profile of factors related to the location of the offender and his/her crimes.
FBI Profiling Process
FBI Profiling Process is comprised of a 4-stage process:
Stage 1 -- Data Assimilation Stage
Gathering and assimilating all available data that might be related to the case (e.g., police reports, crime scene photos, and pathologist reports)
Attempting to identify the offenders’ modus operandi (MO) and/or signature
Modus Operandi (MO) – refers to the particular way by which a person performs a particular task (e.g., how one studies for examinations)
Signature – a specific and identifiable action or characteristic of the offender that reflects their nature.
Stage 2 – Crime Scene Classification: Examination of the crime scene in order to ascertain whether the scene is representative of an organized or disorganized offender Stage 3 – Crime Scene Reconstruction: Use of information gathered in Stages 1 & 2 to reconstruct the crime scene in a way that allows for deciding whether the offender is organized or disorganized
Organised Offender vs. Disorganised Offender
Organised Offender:
to above avg. intelligence
Socially & sexually competent
High birth order
Skilled worker
Controlled mood during crime
Precipitating situational stress
Follows crime in the news
May leave town after crime
Disorsganised Offender:
Below average intelligence
Socially inadequate & sexually incompetent
Low to middle birth order
Unskilled worker
Anxious mood during crime
Minimal situational stress
Does not follow crime in the news
Lives/works near crime scene
Stage 4 -- Profile Generation: Creation of an offender profile that includes physical elements as well as identifiers related to their personality (e.g., is introverted and solitary therefore probably single)
Experimental/Statistical Profiling Model
Step 1: Data
geographic location of crime
geographic location of related criminal activities (e.g., drop zones)
temporal (time) aspects of crime
forensic analysis of evidence
Step 2: Identification of Trends
Step 3: Alignment of Trends with Psychological Knowledge
crime zone selection
drop zones & geographic knowledge
evidence and personality
interpersonal coherence
Step 4: Use of Analysis
location of next crime
location of residence
Classification assigned to serial killers
By convention, a serial killer is someone who has killed three or more people who were previously unknown to them. The murders are separated in time.
There are four classifications assigned to serial killers in Australia. Read An examination of serial murder in Australia (PDF 150 KB) (Links to an external site.) (Mouzos & West, 2007, pp. 1–6) for further information on these classifications. When you have finished reading, attempt the following interactive activity to check your ability to distinguish between the four classifications assigned to serial killers in Australia.
Control (control ppl), Hedonistic (thrill and lust), Mission (on a mission) and Visionary killers (god based). -distinguish between the four classifications assigned to serial killers in Australia.
Read Chapter 3 The interpretation and utilisation of offender profiles: A critical review of ‘traditional’ approaches to profiling (Links to an external site.) (Alison, Barrett & Almond, 2010, pp. 38–57) as it explores prominent profiling approaches to constructing offender profiles and the socio-psychological reasons for their continued use.
Introduction:
- the mind of the public and practitioners, profiling is typically associated with an approach in which typologies of offenders are derived from observing the scene of the crime.
- much of the advice contained within traditional perspectives is ambiguous, unverifiable and contains many erroneous ‘lay’ beliefs about the consistency of human behaviour and the ability to classify individuals into discrete ‘types’
- enquiries in which profiles are sought are, by definition, serious and complicated cases. When faced with complex and ambiguous investigative data, investigators tend to engage in the generation of one or more narratives to make sense of the data. Psychological aetiology helps fill in the gaps in the existing narrative.
The Plausibility of Traditional Approaches to Offender Profiling:
- the process of inferring distinctive personality, characteristics of individual responsible for committing criminal acts (Douglas et al., 1992)
- an offender profile focuses attention on individuals with personality traits that parallel traits of others who have committed similar offenses and where the interpretation of the crime scene evidence can indicate the personality type of individuals who committed the offense
(Pinizzotto and Finkel, 1990).
Assumptions Underlying Traditional approaches to profiling:
- cluster behaviours can be derived from crime scenes and converted into some taxonomic framework.
- What (crime scene material), Why (motivation), Who (descriptions of offenders characteristics) - Pinizzotto and Finkel, 1990.
Assumptions: 1. behavioural consistency (the variance in the crime of serial offenders must be smaller than the variance occurring in a random comparison of different offenders. Offenders are somewhat consistent. 2. homology assumption (there is more similar two offenders are in terms of characteristics, the more similar their behavioural style during the commission of the offense (Davies et al., 1998 - unsuccessful in profiling rapists through characteristics, House, 1997 - 4 thematic foci - aggression, criminality, pseudo-intimacy, sadism, Knight et al., 1998 - typologies are derived from motivation - opportunity, pervasive anger, sexual gratification and vindictiveness)
Yet there is little evidence for the consistency and homology assumptions.
The evaluation of Profiles:
- focus on police officers claims of satisfaction with the advice received.
- US study (Pinizzotto, 1984) reported that profiling helped to focus the investigation or to locate or prosecute a suspect
- US study (Bartol, 1996) found police psychologists did not feel comfortable with profiling and seriously questioned its validity and usefulness
- UK study (Copson, 1995) found profiles were perceived as furthering officers understanding of the offender and in over half of the cases, reassured the officers own judgement about the offender
- mixed evidence
- Kocsis (2003) - claimed that profilers made a great number of correct predictors than any other occupation groups, argued that the poor performance of police officers fails to support the arguments that investigative experience is a key skill necessary for proficient profiling, stated that logical reasoning is crucial to successful profiling, states that there is little support for the use of psychics and the institution they represent. Concluded that professional profilers can produce more accurate predictions about an unknown offender in comparison with police officers, psychologists, students and psychics.
- Bennell et al., (2006) - argued against Kocsis study - 1. measure of profile accuracy was unsound and highly dependent on the interpretation of the respondent. 2. didnt actually assess the participants. 3. data collection and methods were bias
- Alison et al., (2003) - claimed Toulmin’s philosophy lacked appropriate grounding in psychological knowledge, contained no warrants, were provided with no estimation of their veracity and less than a third were falsifiable.
- Almond et al., (2007) found a large positive difference between this contemporary sample and previous non-NPIA expert advice in terms of the substantiveness of their arguments.
The interpretation of profiles:
- Alison et al., (2003) - argued that a contributory factor in the perception of usefulness of traditional profiles, despite evidence to the contrary, concerns the psychological processes involved in interpreting the information. Both of his studies indicated that the majority of participants rated the profile as at least somewhat accurate despite the distinctly different suspects that they were given. However, argued that these preliminary studies highlight the need to conduct further research to test more comprehensively the hypothesis that participants were selectively noting aspects of the profile that can be easily applied to the suspect, ignoring those aspects, that are not applicable and constructing meaning from ambiguity.
- Marshall and Alison (2007) explored how offender profiles influence the way in which individuals interpret investigative information dependent on its congruence with the investigators own beliefs. 1. representativeness which refers to the judgements based on the suspects resemblance to a preconceived stereotype 2. cognitive elaboration which refers to a preference for generating causal links between chunks of info in order to justify the basis for a particular judgement.
The process of Investigation:
- the idea that people use stories both to store and to explain information about the world has received much attention from researchers in a variety of fields including cognition.
- Kleins recognition primed decision model says when tackling complex and ambiguous problems, a decision-maker engages in story building to create a mental representation of the problem situation, drawing on existing case-specific, domain-specific and general knowledge from long-term memory and integrating it with perceived information.
- While heuristic use has important benefits, it can also have significant costs: stories may be helpful vehicles for understanding social information but they are not necessarily always accurate.
Stores and Profiles:
- 1. the readiness to believe that psychologists popularly believe to be experts in the study of human behaviour may have something to offer in a police investigation probably owes alot to police officers recognition that the understanding of the behaviours of others is crucial in an investigation. 2. the use of a story generation heuristic strategy may be an inevitable consequence of the complexity of the task at hand 3. its possible to overly positive view individuals hold of the type of profiles and profilers frequently mentioned in the press is, in part, influenced by the use of technical psychological terms in such profiles. 4. there is some evidence that highly stressful, highly ambiguous situations tend to promote superstitions believes and readiness to invoke simplistic views of behaviour 5. it should be acknowledged that there are pragmatic reasons why police might commission profiles even if they believe them to have little or no value.
Case-based reasoning in criminal investigation: novice and expert:
- further research is needed to determine whether and in what ways experiences investigations greater store of domain-relevant information may facilitate effective processing of complex forensics information.
- its suggested that investigations attempt to generate a mental representation of an investigative problem situation consisting of a coherent, convincing and evidentially sound story explaining the circumstances of the crime.
Read Chapter 8 The playbook (Links to an external site.) (Keppel & Birnes, 2003, pp. 183–195), as they explain the forensic psychologist’s ‘framework’ or ‘playbook’ for the investigation of serial murder cases.
- the model focused on technology-based research
- driven by logic - suggests that the crime scene is the most important aspect
- logic provides direction
- investigators must consciously subject themselves to a mental process of reconstructing what has happened
- killers habits, sexual proclivities, mobility, fears, and potential for future dangerousness are all revealed at a crime scene.
- the most important collection of evidence to be derived from the crime scene where the victims body is discovered is the victims body itself.
Forensic strategy:
- protection of the crime scene
- preservation of the integrity of the evidence
- systematic organisation and methodical.
- systematic - recording the entire scene, a scene assessment, blood evidence analysis, recovery of trace evidence, remove of body, recovery of physical evidence, fingerprint examination and follow up
- it is important for the task-force managers to agree on one system for processing info and for managing the forensics so that the same retrieval system will have the same results no matter what agency is seeking information from the database.
Search Strategy:
- serial cases present a number of different crime scenes and require that detectives know how to define, search, identify, and catalog information about the crime scene.
- consistency in the management is crucial for assessment about multiple crime scenes
- investigators must know how to define a scene, particularly where the body is found.
- what defines a crime scene - suspects home or vehicle, where the body is found, where the suspect has been
Suspect Strategy:
- not just cops they are preparing a case to be tried.
- DNA protection is crucial
Interviewing a Serial Killers:
- post-arrest vulnerability - must have experience investigators to handle this
- manual argues for training as interviews must be planned in advance and investigators have psychological knowledge or support from psychiatrists
- cops need to understand that some killing is ok as it means something to the killer
Living Witness:
- not only have eye witness statements, but can provide clues and information about the crime that was unknown from the scene.
- need to have a strategic interview to ensure information cannot be thrown out in court or refuted.
What is psychological profiling
Psychological profiling is the scientific analysis of trace psychological evidence in order to assist with the detection, suppression, and knowledge of criminal behaviour. Psychological profiling is used in:
the detection of offenders the distribution of resources (e.g. patrols) public education and safety.
Psychological profiling uses models and theories related to abnormal psychology (including psychological disorders) and normal psychology (including decision making). To be successful, criminal profilers must be able to effectively combine these techniques with acute personal insight.
What are the two types
FBI (USA):
Stage 1: Data Assimilation Stage (gathering data and attempting to identify the offenders)
Terms:
MO (Modus Operandi) refers to the particular way by which a person performs a particular task
Signature - a specfic and identifiable action or characteristic of the offender that reflects their nature.
Stage 2: Crime scene classification - examine the crime seen to view organised or disorganised offender
Stage 3: Crime scene reconstruction - use info from stages 1 and 2 to reconstruct the crime scene and view if the offender is organised or disorganised.
Organised Offender:
- above average intelligence
- high birth order
- skilled worked
- controlled mood during crime
- precipitating situational stress
- follows crime in the news
- may leave town after the crime
Disorganised Offender:
- below average intelligence
- socially inadequate and sexually incompetent
- low to middle birth order
- unskilled worker
- anxious mood during crime
- minimal situations stress
- does not follow crime in the news
- lives/works near the crime scene
Stage 4: Profile Generation - creating a profile that identifies their personality.
Experimental/Statistical Profiling Model - UK:
Step 1: Data (geographic location of crime and related activities, temporal ((time)) aspects of the crime, forensic analysis of evidence)
Step 2: Identification of Trends
Step 3: Alignment of Trends with psychological knowledge (crime zone selection, drop zones & geographic knowledge, evidence and personality, interpersonal coherence)
Step 4: use of analysis (location of the next crime and residence)
What is it used for
FBI (USA):
This model aims to create a psychological profile of the offender.
Experimental/Statistical Profiling Model:
This model aims to create a statistically based profile of factors related to the location of the offender and his/her crimes.
Who developed it
FBI (USA):
As an innovator at the FBI in the late 1970s, John Douglas developed new investigative techniques for hunting serial killers, sex offenders, and other violent offenders. Advancing the use in investigations of the procedure known as criminal profiling, Douglas became widely recognized as its top authority.
Experimental/Statistical Profiling Model:
Unable to find who developed but it was started in the UK
What is the WentinkTypology
Organised Offender:
- above average intelligence
- high birth order
- skilled worked
- controlled mood during crime
- precipitating situational stress
- follows crime in the news
- may leave town after the crime
Disorganised Offender:
- below average intelligence
- socially inadequate and sexually incompetent
- low to middle birth order
- unskilled worker
- anxious mood during crime
- minimal situations stress
- does not follow crime in the news
- lives/works near the crime scene
Visionary Killers - motivated by perceived voices or images instructing them to kill a particular person, or type of person
Mission Killers - motivated by their belief that a person or type of person is unacceptable or valueless and should be removed from society. At the crime scene, the murder weapon is usually missing and throat cutting is usually the cause of death
Lust Killers - motivated by sex and murder is part of fulfilling their sexual lusts. At the crime scene, a sexual aspect will be evident
Thrill Killers - motivated by pleasure they experience from killing. At the crime scene, prolonged torture will be evident
Power/Control Killers - motivated by the need to exert ultimate control or power over their victim
Australian Classification of Serial Killers:
- Visionary
- Mission
- Hedonistic (lust and thrill)
- Control
