Forensics Flashcards
(3 cards)
Discuss the top-down approach to offender profiling. (16)
AO1:
- Starting with a pre-established typology to work down to lower levels and assign offenders as organised/disorganised using witness accounts and evidence from the scene.
- Was created by the FBI and the data was gathered from 36 interviews with sexually-motivated murderers. Concluded the data could be put into organised/disorganised categories. These could be used to predict other characteristics.
- Organised offenders: evidence of planning, targeted victim, clean up scene, don’t leave clues.
- Disorganised offenders: no evidence of planning, random victim, little clean up, leaves traces/clues.
- Constructing an FBI profile: data assimilation, crime scene classification, crime reconstruction, profile generation.
AO3:
Strength = Research support for the organised category of offender.
- Canter et al: analysed 100 murders, used smallest space analysis, assessed co-occurrence of serial killings.
- Included restraint, using a weapon and cause of death.
- Revealed there is a subset of features for organised offenders.
Strength = Real world application to other types of crime.
- Has been applied to burglary: helped solve more.
- Adds two new categories, interpersonal and opportunistic.
- Has wider application than was first assumed.
Limitation = The evidence it’s based on.
- Based on interviews with serial killers.
- Canter et al: poor sample, not large enough and wasn’t a range of types of crime.
- Doesn’t have a sound, scientific basis.
Discuss the bottom-up approach to offender profiling. (16)
AO1:
- Work up from evidence from the scene to develop hypotheses about the likely characteristics of the offender.
Investigative psychology
- Applies statistical procedures to the analysis of crime scene evidence.
- Establishes patterns of behaviour, that can help to produce a database which can act as a comparison.
- Interpersonal coherence = how the offender interacts with the victim and the scene.
Geographical profiling
- Can help establish the home or operational basis of an offender: a marauder or commuter.
- Canter’s circle theory: crimes make a hypothetical ‘circle’ around the offender’s base.
AO3:
Strength for investigative psychology = Supporting evidence.
- Canter and Heritage: analysed 66 sexual assaults, several behaviours were common in different samples of behaviour, such as impersonal language.
- Displayed a trait pattern that can help establish if an offence was committed by the same person.
- Supports one of the basic principles.
Strength for geographical profiling = Supporting evidence.
- Lundrigan and Canter: analysed murder cases, revealed spatial consistency.
- Location of body disposal site created a ‘centre of gravity’ no matter where they disposed.
- Supports view that geographical info can be used to identify an offender.
Limitation = Geographical profiling may not be sufficient on its own.
- Not all crimes are reported and accuracy cab vary between police forces.
- Questions the approach as it relies on the accuracy of data.
- May not always lead to a successful capture.
Discuss the atavistic from as a historical approach to offending behaviour. (16)
AO1:
- Offenders are genetic throwbacks to a primitive sub-species that can be distinguishable by cranial and facial traits.
- Seen as impossible to adjust to the demands of civilised society and would inevitably turn to crime.
- Cranial characteristics: narrow, sloping brow, high cheekbones and prominent jaw.
- Physical markers: darker skin, existence of extra toes/fingers.
- Insensitivity to pain, use of slang, tattoos.
- Categorised offenders based on the type of crime they had committed.
AO3:
Strength = Changed the face of the study of crime.
- Shifted emphasis towards a scientific and credible position.
- Heralded the beginning of offender profiling.
- Major contribution to the science of criminology.
Limitation = Evidence contradicts the link between atavism and crime.
- Goring: studied 3000 offenders and 3000 non-offenders.
- Established no evidence that offenders were part of a distinct group with specific characteristics.
- Challenges the idea that offenders are physically distinguishable.
Limitation = Methods were poorly controlled.
- Didn’t compare offenders to non-offenders, would have controlled confounding variables.
- He also demonstrated racist ideas.
- His methods don’t meet modern scientific standards.
