Forensic psychology- Offender profiling

Question 1

What is the definition of crime ?

Answer 1

Any behaviour that is unlawful and punishable by the state. It is an act that is harmful to an individual, group or society as a whole

Question 2

What are 3 methods of measuring crime ?

Answer 2

• Official statistics
• Victim surveys
• Offender surveys

Question 3

What are official statistics ?

Answer 3

Government produces official crime statistics annually based on incidents reported to police or when police discover an offence

Question 4

What are some problems with official statistics ?

Answer 4

They may only represent a part of criminal activity as victim may be avoiding stigma

Question 5

What are victim surveys ?

Answer 5

Asking people to identify which crimes have been committed against them over a fixed period of time. The sample is randomly selected from Royal mails list.

Question 6

What are some strengths of victim surveys ?

Answer 6

It provides information about unreported crime that would otherwise not been reported

Question 7

What are some issues with victim surveys ?

Answer 7

There are issues with sampling as of those contacted only 75% take part so is often an underestimate

Question 8

What are offender surveys ?

Answer 8

Questions offenders to produce information about their extent of offending

Question 9

What are the limitations of offender surveys ?

Answer 9

It is a self report method so people may not be as truthful in their responses

Question 10

Who developed the top down approach and where did it originate ?

Answer 10

Douglas et al and it originated in the US

Question 11

What are the 6 main stages of the top down approach ?

Answer 11

1- Profiling inputs
2- Decision process model
3- Crime assessment
4- Criminal profile
5- Crime assessment
6- Apprehension

Question 12

What is included in profiling inputs ?

Answer 12

• Description of the crime itself
• Background information of the victim
• Description of the crime scene

Question 13

What is included decision process models ?

Answer 13

• Murder type (Mass, Spree, Serial)
• Location factors
• Time factors

Question 14

What is included in a crime assessment ?

Answer 14

Based on the data collected the offender can be put into a category of either:
- Organised
- Disorganised

Question 15

What are some traits of an organised offender ?

Answer 15

• Crime is planned and offender is targeted
• Body is transported from the scene
• High IQ
• Sexually competent
• Often live at home with a partner
• Little cues at scene

Question 16

What are some traits of a disorganised offender ?

Answer 16

• Unplanned crime
• Random selection of victim
• Offender doesn’t engage much with victim
• Sexual acts performed on body after death
• Lots of clues left at crime scene
• Low IQ
• Failed relationships
• Live close to crime scene

Question 17

What is included in a criminal profile ?

Answer 17

A profile is constructed about the offender including hypotheses about their background

Question 18

What is included in a crime assessment ?

Answer 18

A written report is given to the police and those matching the profile are evaluated

Question 19

What is included in the apprehension section ?

Answer 19

If successful, the entire process is revised to check for validity

Question 20

Give a limitation of the top down approach

Answer 20

Original data may be flawed as data came from 36 interviews with murderers to identify the key characteristics between them. Canter said the sample was poor as the FBI did not select a random/ large sample size with different types of offender