CRIMINAL PROFILING

Question 1

what is criminal profiling

Answer 1

comprises behavioural, cognitive, emotional, lifestyle, personality, demographic features of offender
-involves drawing inferences about offender based on crime scene, details of crime and other evidence

Question 2

what are other names for criminal profiling

Answer 2

offender profiling
criminal personality profiling (psychiatrists, psychologists)
criminal investigative analysis (RCMP, OPP, QPP)
crime scene analysis (FBI)

Question 3

what 5 reasons is criminal profiling used

Answer 3

1. narrow down suspect pool
2. set traps to flush criminal out
3. determine whether to take threat seriously
4. inform how interrogations should be proceed
5. help prosecutors break down defendants during cross-examination

Question 4

what are the 3 assumptions of criminal profiling

Answer 4

1. behaviours during crime are reflected in crime scene
2. offenders behave in stable way across crimes they commit
3. there are stable relationships between how crimes are committed and their background characteristics

Question 5

what is the homology assumption
what is the behavioural consistency hypothesis
what is the modus operandi

Answer 5

crime scene reflects personality

personality will not change

method of operation will be consistent

Question 6

what information can be predicted via criminal profiling

Answer 6

1. demographics (age, sex, race, educational history)
2. person factors (level of intelligence, family background, psychosexual development, etc).
3. experience (criminal history, post-offence behaviour)

Question 7

in 1985, the FBI had __

Answer 7

violent criminal apprehension program (ViCAP)
-database of sexual assault, missing person and unidentified person cases used to link serial crimes

Question 8

what is an example of canadian profiling

Answer 8

RCMP’s violent crime linkage analysis system (ViCLAS)

Question 9

what is an offence-based profile

Answer 9

crime scene (profile details of offense)
-top down
-organized-disorganized typology

Question 10

what is offender based profile

Answer 10

suspect based (profile the offender)
-bottom-up

Question 11

clinical profiling __ whereas statistical profile __

Answer 11

incorporates intuition, knowledge, experience and training

utilizes descriptive and inferential statistical models derived from records of who committed similar crimes

Question 12

what is a deductive (idiographic) profile

Answer 12

offender characteristics from this scene
-relies on logic, experience, insight, intuition
-can be applied to all crimes
-if logic is faulty, profile is faulty

Question 13

what is inductive (nomothetic)

Answer 13

offender characteristics from other crimes
-relies on statistics
-more objective
-depends on having access to info about similar crimes

Question 14

what is an example of an inductive approach

Answer 14

cluster analysis used to identify how sex offenders search for, select, approach and assault victims
-also cluster analysis to identify background characteristics

Question 15

what can be said about behavioural evidence analysis

Answer 15

deductive
infer characteristics of offender from case facts
no reference made to other offenders

Question 16

what is geographic profiling

Answer 16

analysis of geographical locations associated with the spatial movements of a single serial offender

Question 17

for a geographic profile, a geoprofiler develops hypotheses about __

Answer 17

the approximate location of offenders residence, base of operations and where the next crime may occur
-often tied to psychological principles

Question 17

offender based profiling derives from __

Answer 17

the systematic collection of behavioural, personality, cognitive and demographic data on previous offenders
-includes racial profiling

Question 17

psychological profiling involves __

Answer 17

gathering information
-threat assessment/risk assessment
-often created for group offenders

Question 17

what is the key weakness of offence-based (crime scene) profiling

Answer 17

often based on unvalidated assumptions and subject to investigator bias
lacks credit/scientific foundation

Question 17

what is the key weakness of geographical profiling

Answer 17

not useful if moved out of area
does mot consider psychological characteristics

Question 17

what is the key weakness of offender based (suspect based) profiling

Answer 17

can be illegal or biased, based on characteristics such as race, religion, ethnicity

Question 18

what is the key weakness of psychological profiling

Answer 18

descriptive, may be speculative and dependent on unreliable source material
-may not be valid

Question 19

what is the key weakness of psychological autopsy

Answer 19

not accepted guidelines on how to conduct, thus highly subject to not be admitted or refuted

Question 20

what is the theoretical basis of disorganized-organized profile

Answer 20

relies on classic trait model of 60s, which argued that behaviours is due to stable, internal traits
-traits no longer believed to be only or primary driver of behaviour

Question 21

what is the empirical support for underlying assumptions about profiling

Answer 21

1. offenders behave in stable way across crimes they commit
   -partial support
2. there are stable relationships between how crimes are committed and their background characteristics

Question 22

self labelled profilers were better than comparison groups at predicting __, __, __ and __ but the differences are small

Answer 22

cognitive processes
physical attributes
offence behaviours
history/habits

Question 23

what is a pseudoscience

Answer 23

beliefs or practices which are wrongly portrayed or believed to be based on scientific findings

Question 24

the FBI originally defined criminal profiling as __

Answer 24

technique for predicting behavioural and personality characteristics of a perpetrator based upon an analysis of the crimes they have committed