Behavioural Analysis Flashcards
1
Q
When was the FBI behavioural science uni established?
A
1972
2
Q
NCAVC
A
National centre for the analysis of violent crime
3
Q
VICAP
A
The violent crime apprehension programme
4
Q
VICLAS
A
Violent crime linkage analysis system
5
Q
What is offender profiling?
A
Inferring characteristics of an offender based on their crime scene actions
6
Q
London (1986)
A
- series of 24 sexual assaults on females committed over a 4 year period
- was close to railway stations
7
Q
Canter
A
- carried out a systematic analysis of the victim rape statements and locations where the offences had occurred
8
Q
What was included in the preliminary profile? (Residence)
A
- lived in the area
- possibly lives with wife or girlfriend
9
Q
Age?
A
- mid to late 20’s
- light hair
- about 5 ft 9
- right handed
- a secretor
10
Q
Occupation
A
- probably semi-skilled or skilled job
- job not in contact with public
11
Q
Character?
A
- keeps to himself but has one or two close male friends
- little contact with women
- has knowledge of railway system
12
Q
Sexual activity
A
- considerable sexual experience
13
Q
Criminal record
A
- probably under arrest for some time
- possibly for aggressive attack under influence of alcohol
14
Q
How accurate was professor cantors profile?
A
13/17 points made in the profile were correct
15
Q
Investigative psychology
A
- the scientific psychological study of offender actions and detection processes
- aims to advance the psychological understanding of offending activity, offenders and the investigative process
16
Q
Weaknesses of early offender profiles?
A
- no base rates
- multiple outs
- included information that could not be falsified
- provision of vague statements
- bamum effect
- reliance on personal judgement rather than actuarial assessment
17
Q
Barnum effect
A
The Tendency to accept general or vague characteristics and take them to be accurate
18
Q
Evidence for the effect?
A
- ppt’s constructed meaning from ambiguity
19
Q
Evidence of confirmation bias?
A
- ppts selected only parts of the profile that were correct
20
Q
Evidence of demand characteristics?
A
Ppts did what they thought the researcher wanted them to
21
Q
Alison, Smith, Eastman and rainbow (2003)
A
- Analysed 21 UK and American profiles
- half of the profiles included advice that was unfalsifiable
- one fifth of statements were vague or open to interpretation
- in 80% of cases profiler had not given any evidence or justification for their opinion
22
Q
Toulmins framework
A
- breaks the profile down into component parts to enable the strengths and weaknesses of the claims to be analysed
- aids the construction of profiles
23
Q
5 parts?
A
- Claim
- Modality (strength of the claim)
- Grounds (support for the claim)
- Warrant
- Backing (formal support for warrant)
24
Q
BIA
A
- used to develop advice for the investigators, based on the study of behaviour exhibited in the commission of crime
25
Services?
- interview
- media advice
- case linkage analysis
- predictive profiling
- investigative suggestions
- familial DNA prioritisation
- nominal prioritisation
26
What should their input be viewed as?
- intelligence not evidence
| - decision support not decision making
27
Investigative Psychology
- aims to advance the psychological understanding of offending activity, offenders and the investigative process
28
Areas?
1. Understanding and modelling criminal behaviour
2. Improving the investigative process and detection rates
3. Improving investigative interviewing
4. Psychological evaluation of evidential material
5. Risk/threat assessment and reduction
29
The investigative cycle
- Action - decision making
- information - types of information, retrieval, evaluation
- inference: A-C equation, crime linking, geographical profiling
30
Two key questions IP seek to answer
1) do offenders show consistency in their behaviour
2) how can we distinguish between offenders ?
A-C equation is a question of both offender consistency and differentiation
31
Offender consistency hypothesis (canter, 1995)
Behaviours at a crime scene are more typical of an offender committing a crime than other offenders committing similar crimes
32
Why did IP emerge?
- as a scientific discipline in the early 1990’s following canters psychological input to operation Hart
33
When was offender profiling evaluated?
Following the failed investigation into the murder of Rachel nickel
34
Differentiating Offender styles
1. role offender assigns to victim
2. Action systems
3. Narrative perspectives
35
Role offender assigns to victim
- victim as object
- v as person
- v as vehicle
36
Action systems
Source of action in relation to agent
Locus or effect in relation to agent
Mode
37
Narrative perspective
Romantic quest
Tragedy
Adventure
Irony
38
Narrative theory of criminal action
- going beyond informed speculation
- developing theories and models of criminal actions and experiences
- no assumptions made about unconscious motivations
- how offender interacts with others
- role offender assigns to their own life
- role offender assigns to the victim
- crime as an interpersonal transaction
39
IP methodology
- focuses on examining offenders actions rather than what they say about them
- use of police recorded data
- quantitative modelling of qualitative material
- co-occurrences of behaviours across crime scenes
- uses multi dimensional scaling
40
Canter and Heritage (1990)
- Smallest Space Analysis (SSA)
