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Forensics - Coggle Diagram
Forensics
Offender profiling
Top down approach
The 7 FBI stages:
- Murder type - the sort of killing committed
- Primary intent - whether a crime was premeditated or not
- Victim risk - a victims degree of vulnerability
- Escalation - the degree to which a crime has become more serious than previously
- Time factors - time of day the crime was committed
- location factors - where the crime took place
- involves an analysis of previous crimes to create a profile of a likely offender
- A profiler then uses this knowledge to narrow the field for possible suspects
- qualitative approach
- relies heavily on prior knowledge
- tends to be more suitable for the more extreme/unusual crimes - murder, rape
STRENGTHS
- Some police who have used the top down approach found it useful
--> Cospon (1995) conducted a questionnaire on 182 US police officers
- 82% said they found it useful
- 90% said they'd use it again
- But this approach is based on extreme cases which are not representative of the general criminal population
WEAKNESSES
- Not scientific as it is based on the opinions and intuition of profilers
- can only be used to explain crimes where there are obvious, visible characteristics so unlikely to be effective in identifying criminals who are responsible for burglary or middle class crimes e.g. financial fraud
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Bottom up approach
- Data driven approach that makes use of statistical data on similar crimes that have been committed to make predictions about the characteristics of an offender
Interpersonal coherence - personality is consistent which provides clues, changes in circumstance may provide other clues
Geographical profiling
- profiling based on the pattern shown by the location or locations of a series of crimes
Biological explanations
Atavistic form
- possible explanation for offending based on the idea that offenders may represent a more primitive evolutionary stage of development than their peers
- Lombroso found criminals were more likely to have the physical characteristics;strong jaw, heavy brow, large ears, extra nipples or extra fingers/toes
- he called the features Atavistic
- he argues that criminals were not to blame for their activities as their behaviour was determined by their physiology
STRENGTHS
- first person to highlight biology as an explanation for criminal behaviour
WEAKNESSES
- Lombroso didn't include a control group so without a comparison it is difficult to draw conclusions
- theory may have lead to criminals being stereotyped
- Lombroso's sample may have included people who had learning difficulties which may have skewed the measurements taken as some learning difficulties have a physical effect on the facial features
Genetics
Twin studies
- the concordance rate of twins for criminal behaviour gives an indication of the extent that offending behaviour could be seen to be heritable
Diathesis-stress
- modern understanding of genetic influence suggests genes are 'switched' on or off by epigenomes which are affected by environmental factors
- maltreatment in childhood
- Caspi et al. (2002) used data from the longitudinal Dunedin study (New Zealand) that has followed 1000 people from when they were babies in the 1970s
- Caspi et al. assessed anti social behaviour at age 26 and found 12% of men with low MAOA genes and maltreatment when they were babies but were responsible for 44% of violent convictions
Neural explanation
Biochemistry
- 3 biochemicals that effect offending behaviour:
- Noradrenaline - part of fight or flight to help respond in a threatening situation. Research suggests high levels are linked to violence and aggression
- Serotonin - regulates mood and impulse control meaning low levels can influence criminal behaviour as there will be more impulsivity
- Dopamine - implicated in offending behaviour because of it's link to addiction and substance abuse. Dopaminergic activity in the limbic system means that pleasure is experienced - the greater the activity the greater the feeling of pleasure. Makes addiction and therefore crime more likely
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Brain physiology
Limbic system
- set of subcortical structures (e.g. thalamus and amygdala linked to emotion and motivation)
- Raine et al. (1997) studied murderers who were found not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI)
- compered with matched controls, they found abnormal asymmetries in the limbic system of the murderers , especially amygdala - reduced activity on the left, increased activity on the right
Prefrontal cortex
- Raine (2004) cited 71 brain imaging studies showing that murderers, psychopaths and violent individuals have reduced functioning in the prefrontal cortex - area of brain involved in regulating emotion and controlling moral behaviour
- lowered activity in prefrontal cortex is associated with impulsiveness and loss of control
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Defining crime
- crime is a violation of the law defined by the state
- crime is a social construction related to cultural views. It varies across countries and historical periods
- the concept of a 'crime of passion' may lead to a more lenient sentence for murder if the individual acted as a consequence of sudden passion after an 'adequate cause'
- there are some behaviours that are universally regarded as unacceptable and therefore widely accepted as crimes
Ways of measuring crime
Official statistics
- produced in the UK by the Home Office
- statistics note any changing patterns of crime across different years
Victim surveys
- asks a sample of people to identify which crimes have been committed against them over a fixed period of time
- the Victim survey for England and Wales was started in 1982
- since 2001 the crime survey has been repeated every year and now involves a sample of about 50,000 households, interviewing those aged 16 years and over in the household
Offender surveys
- asks the offender about the crime
- in England and Wales the Offending, Crime and Justice Survey was carried out annually between 2003 and 2006 - 5000 people sample
- aim was to increase knowledge about young people and criminal behaviour
- showed that half of the people aged 10-25 who took part had committed offences
- assaults and drug crime were the most common crimes admitted
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Cognitive explanations
Cognitive distortions
- form of irrational thinking
- what is perceived b the individual doesn't match reality
Hostile attribution bias
- lean to think the worst when observing others behaviour
- negative interpretations lead to more aggressive behaviour
Minimisation
- reduce any negative interpretation of their behaviour before or after a crime has been commited
- helps individual accept consequences of their behaviour and reduce negative emotions such as guilt
Moral reasoning
- thinking in a consistent and logical way about right and wrong, with reference to socially agreed principles
- criminals are likely to believe breaking the law is justified if the rewards outweigh the costs or if punishment can be avoided
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