Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Forensics psychology - Coggle Diagram
Forensics psychology
-
-
offender Profilling
top down
creating offender profile:there are four main stages of creating an offender profile. 1.Data Assimilation - reviewing the evidence from the crime scene- 2.crime scene classification - as either organised or disorganised- 3.Crime reconstruction -hypothesis in terms of sequence of events- 4.Profile generation -hypothesis to the likely offender-.
organised offender: evidence for planning out the crime and usually will have picked out a target and have a "type" of target and take control of their crime with precision. there is often no clues left behind as they are quite intelligent
disorganised offender: little evidence of planning, suggesting spontaneity and the scene tends to represent the spur of the moment actions of the crime like the body being left or leaving clues around.
weakness: Only applies to certain crimes -crimes like burglary and assault cant really lead to much evidence about the criminal unlike arson, rape and cult killings which weakens the approach- ,
outdated models of personality -it is based on the fact that personality remains consistent across crimes however critics like Alison et al say that it is not driven by dispositional factors and is influenced by external factors causing change- ,
evidence doesn't support the disorganised offender -David Canter et al used smallest space analysis and found that organised characteristics could be determined but not for disorganised- .
bottom up
Investigative psychology This is used to establish patterns in a crime scene. Then used to create a database of different trends across crime scenes to understand if it is the same criminal and allows to give an idea on their interpersonal coherence for how they interact with the crime scene like their forensic awareness meaning how well they cover their tracks
Supporting evidence David Canter and Rupert Heritage, completed a content analysis of 66 sexual assault cases using a computer program to asses the correlations between the cases and how an offenders behaviour can change through different crimes. This then supports investigative psychology by showing statistical techniques can be applied
Geographical profiling: described by Kim Rossmo, using information about the location of the crime scene to tell if they are most likely a marauder or a commuter. this is to understand the pattern in locations where the criminal is comfortable and confident allowing for the understanding of where the criminal may live or have previously lived
Supporting Evidence Samantha Lundrigan and David Canter collated 120 murder cases from crimes in the USA smallest space analysis revealed spacial consistency of the killers it was found the location of the dead bodies formed a centre of gravity showing where the murderer was located. supporting Canters theory that geographical profiling is a key factor in finding the "base" of an offender.
Weaknesses Mixed results for profiling, Gary Copson surveyed 48 police forces and found that in 83% of the cases the information was flagged as useful but only in 3% of the cases did it lead to accurate identification of the offender
Biological explanations
Atavistic form
Atavistic features: Lombroso suggested that there were certain physiological markers for criminals that make them different from "normal" people like a furrowed brow, dark skin, extra fingers and/or nipples and curly hair. It was also said different types of criminals had distinct features for example sexual deviants had a glint in their eyes. Separate to physical features Lombroso also suggested that insensitivity to pain, using criminal slang and being without a job were criminal characteristics.
Lombroso's research: lombroso studied the skulls of 383 dead criminals and 3839 living criminals and in conclusion he found that 40% of criminal acts were committed by people with atavistic characteristics.
Strength: Lombroso has been labelled as the Father to criminology as he moved the thought process from moralistic discourse to a more scientific and credible route and pathed the way for criminal profiling
Weaknesses: Scientific Racism -many critics have drawn attention to the racist undertones of Lombroso's work like features such as curly hair or a wide nose or dark skin are all features that link to African decent which gives it an awkward tone in criminology- , Contradicting Research - Charles Goring set out to research differences in features from criminal classes after studying 3000 criminals and 3000 non-criminals it was found there were no differences-
genetic and neural
-
neural: it is suggested there are differences in the brain between criminals and non-criminals. lots of criminals are diagnosed with APD -antisocial personality disorder- linking to lack of emotional understanding.
Pre-frontal cortex: people with APD have reduced activity in the pre frontal cortex which is associated with emotional control and impulse control, this in turn explains why they have anger outburts.
Mirror Neurons: recent research has suggested people with APD can feel empathy however it is more sporadic than the rest of the population. As well as that they have a switch in their brain to turn empathy on and off which normal people do not have
strength: Support of the diathesis stress model - a major study of 13,000 danish adoptees conducted by sarnoff Mednick when neither the biological parents or adoptive parents the percentage of adoptees with a criminal record was 13.5% the percentage increased to 20% when one of the two parents either adoptive or biological had a criminal conviction and up to 24.5% when both adoptive and biological parents had a criminal record. the data suggests that biological factors have an effect however you cant disregard environmental factors
weakness: Biological Reductionism- criminality is complex and explanations like this which link it to just genetic or neural factors may be inappropriate and overly simplistic therefore this theory is biologically reductionist