Forensics Flashcards
Maternal Deprivation Theory (Bowlby)
the ability to form meaningful relationships in adulthood is dependent upon the child forming continuous, positive relationships with a mother figure.
Englander
Displaced aggression in offenders might explain their antisocial behaviour.
If offenders cannot control their aggression, which comes from their instinctive id, the aggression might spill out of their unconscious, resulting in violent and offending behaviour
What is a top-down approach
A top-down approach (TDA) is used when pre-determined theories or ideas are applied to data - in the case of offender profiling the data comes in the form of the crime scene
Who created the top-down approach
The TDA is also known as the American approach to offender profiling as it was developed, primarily, by Robert Ressler from the FBI’s Behavioural Sciences Unit in the 1970s
The TDA was based on…
The TDA was based on interviews conducted with 36 violent offenders, which included some notorious serial killers (e.g. Charles Manson and Ted Bundy) some of whom had committed sexually motivated murders
How did the data give Ressler
The data obtained from these interviews combined with crime scene data helped Ressler and his colleagues to identify two typologies of murderer: organised and disorganised
What is Modus Operandi
Offender typologies are based on the idea that each type of offender will use a distinct modus operandi (MO) which distinguishes them and the characteristics of their crimes
Organised offenders
Evidence of the crime having been planned
Very little physical evidence
Victim may have been restrained or attacked with tools brought to the scene by the offender
Victim is likely to be a stranger who cannot be traced back to the offender
Indication that the offender has exercised control at the scene
The victim’s body may have been moved to a different location and/or concealed
Disorganised offenders
Crime scene is chaotic with no evidence of it having been planned
Physical evidence may be abundant
Offender had to improvise and use tools already at the scene
Victim may be a stranger but could just as equally be known to the offender
Offender may have exercised little or no control at the scene
There is little or no attempt to move or conceal the victim
Based on the above typologies Ressler and his colleagues concluded that organised offenders:
are likely to have a high IQ and be in a professional or skilled occupation
are socially competent and have several friends and colleagues
are likely to be in a relationship
may have been suffering from some kind of negative mental state e.g. depression, anxiety, anger when the crime was committed
are aware of media interest in and coverage of the crime (some offenders may even communicate with the police or media as a way of prolonging their involvement in the crime)
Based on the above typologies Ressler and his colleagues concluded that disorganised offenders:
are likely to have a low IQ and be in an unskilled or semi-skilled occupation (or unemployed)
are socially incompetent with few friends and colleagues
are likely to live alone or have a problematic relationship history
are likely to have been abused as a child
are likely to show confusion, fear and panic at the crime scene and in general when confronted with stressful situations
The FBI TDA in summary consists of:
Reviewing crime scene evidence
Categorising the offender as organised or disorganised
Reconstructing the crime in light of the evidence gathered and the type of offender identified e.g. what might have occurred, how the victim was apprehended, why the attack took place, what the offender might have brought to the scene, how the offender might have left the scene
Producing a profile of the offender e.g. their personal, professional and social characteristics
Strengths of the TDA
The TDA may be useful for identifying (and subsequently apprehending) sexually-motivated murderers due to the standardised template which can be applied to such crimes
The TDA has been used successfully in 17% of case, which may seem like a negligible number, however it means that the perpetrators of some very serious crimes were caught before they could harm anyone else (Holmes, 1998)
Weaknesses of the TDA
The TDA is based on interview data from 36 serial killers in the 1970s which means that it lacks temporal validity and may suffer from several types of bias (e.g. social desirability bias, confirmation bias) which would damage the validity of the approach
The TDA is not necessarily appropriate for every type of crime as its basis lies in the documenting of (mainly) sexually-motivated serial murder which means that it lacks consistency (and, by association, reliability) across crimes
TDA link to issues and debates
The TDA typology is overly reductionist and does not account for variability across crimes or that an offender may be organised for one crime and disorganised for another crime (an offender may also combine features of both typologies at the same crime scene) . Additionally the TDA assumes that typology is stable yet human behaviour fluctuates i.e. people do not always act in exactly the same, unchanging way per situation.
