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forensic psychology - Coggle Diagram

- - - - often are very meticulous and have above average IQ
      - socially capable and sexually competent
      - often successful and may even have a family of their own
      - high degree of control
      - their victims are most often targeted and is usually fit the offenders 'type'
      - familiar with investigation methods
        
        sometimes insert themselves into the investigation - through journalism, law enforcement etc.
        
        likely to follow the media and news reports of their crimes and/or correspond with the media
        
        e.g. the zodiac killer, san francisco, 1960s-70s
      - examples
        
        the zodiac killer
        
        ted bundy
        
        jeffrey dahmer
        
        john wayne gacy - 'the killer clown'
        
        charles manson - 'the manson family'
        
        ted kaczynski - 'the unabomber'
    - - often below average intelligence
      - socially isolated
      - impulsive - often use blitz attacks
      - make little efforts to hide evidence - very little clean up and body is often left at scene
      - unplanned - victims often chosen at random, spur of the moment
      - lacks confidence in everyday life
      - history of sexual disfunction and failed relationships
      - unskilled and often unemployed
      - little control
      - often lives alone and in close vicinity to the crime
      - examples
        
        jack the ripper
        
        richard ramirez - 'the night stalker'
    - - these signatures often correlate to social and psychological characteristics which relate to the unsub (unknown subject)
      - some offenders however, do not completely fit these two typologies - some may start off being organised offenders but may devolve and become disorganised in their methods and become sloppy
  - - - P: a weakness of the top-down approach is that it is only really suited for certain types of offenders - e.g. serial killers, rapists
      - E: best suited for crimes that reveal a lot about the unsub (arson, rape, cult killings) and more macabre practiced crimes (e.g. sadistic torture, dissection/decapitation)
      - E: these crimes tend to allow for offenders to have a unique signature which may reveal more about them - other crimes such as burglary or destruction of property does not tend to say much about the offender themselves and therefore doesn't really lend itself to profiling
      - L: the top-down approach is therefore a limited approach as it cannot apply itself to crimes other than quite severe crimes
    - - P: typology classification system assumes that offenders have patterns of behaviour and motivations across all situations and contexts
      - E: critics (e.g. Alison et al.) have suggested this is an incredibly limited and naive approach
      - E: old-fashioned models of personality see behaviour as driven by stable dispositional traits rather than external forces - these are static whereas external forces are constantly changing
      - L: top-down approach is therefore limited as it has poor validity when it comes to trying to understand the unsub's next move
- - - - things that are defined as crimes can be changed based on time, place, culture and social situation
      - e.g. its a crime to commit a murder, but in the context of war it is normalised
        
        i.e. role in society plays a big role
- - - - coined in the early 1990s - to draw attention to the fact that psychology had much to contribute to criminal investigations
      - is the statistical analysis of crime - uses computer programmes
      - aims to apply statistical procedures and psychological theories to the analysis of crime scene evidence
        
        takes a scientific and empirical approach
      - explores a range of crime including fraud, burglary, terrorism, serial killing, arson, rape and organised crime
      - statistical database formed by recording patterns of behaviour likely to occur or co-exist across crime scenes
        
        database acts as a baseline for comparison
      - based on psychological theory
        
        1. interpersonal coherence - the way an offender behaves at a crime scene and how they interact with the victim can reveal their behaviour in everyday life
        
        dwyer (2001) found that some rapists maintain maximum control - humiliating their victims - while others are more apologetic
        
        this might inform the police on how the offender relates to women in general
        
        2. significance of time and place - info on the time and place of offence (geographic profiling)
        
        helps the police to figure out where the offender may live
        
        i.e. some offenders may work within their comfort zone and others tend to branch out further from where they live
        
        3. forensic awareness - refers to individuals who have been the subject of police investigations/interrogation before
        
        they are much more aware of how the police operate
        
        therefore may be better at covering their tracks
    - - also known as crime mapping - using info related to location linked to crime scenes to to make inferences on the likely home of the offender
        
        works with the assumption that serial offenders will work within a comfort zone
        
        this helps to understand why some areas experience more crime than others
      - used alongside investigative psychology to create a profile and determine an M.O.
      - understanding the spatial patterns of behaviour can help to provide a centre of gravity - this is likely to include where the offender is based
        
        also helps the investigators determine the area where the offender may strike next
        
        this is known as the jeopardy surface
      - circle theory - developed by canter and larkin (1993)
        
        two types of offenders
        
        marauder
        
        an offender which operates within a close proximity to their home base (comfort zone)
        
        static, localised or geographically stable serial offender
        
        bounded by psychological barriers and landscape features
        
        haven lies within the distribution
        
        commuter
        
        an offender which operates far from their home base and travel a distance away from their usual residence
        
        mobile, dispersed or geographically transient
        
        operates within a large vicinity
        
        outside the offender's awareness space
        
        involves complex hunting strategies
        
        hunting area lacks a definitive anchor point
        
        typical pattern of offending is likely to form a circle around the offender's residence
        
        this becomes more apparent as the number of crimes increase - a pattern is formed
        
        informs investigators about the spatial decision making
        
        e.g. opportunistic vs planned, offender's employment status, access to transport
    - - 1. evidence to support investigative psychology :)
        
        P: strength is that there is research to support investigative psych
        
        E: canter and heritage studied 66 sexual assault cases using statistical technique - small space analysis - identifies correlations in patterns of behaviour
        
        E: impersonal language and lack of reaction to the victim were some of the common characteristics that were found - these occur in different patterns in different individuals
        
        L: this is useful as it shows how a serial offender's behaviour may change over time and therefore illustrates the effectiveness of statistical testing
      - 2. evidence to support geographical profiling
      - 3. profiling that went wrong - rachel nickell
        
        P: rachel nickell case is a limitation of the bottom-up approach as it shows that even though someone may fit a certain profile, it doesn't mean that they committed the crime - the wrong man was arrested and the real suspect committed further severe crimes when the police were focused on stagg
        
        E: criminal profiler britton brought in to assist the police and constructed a profile which lead to the arrest of Colin Stagg - who fit britton's profile
        
        E: police set up a honey trap to get stagg to confess to the murder and brought it to trial despite only having circumstantial evidence - which was thrown out by the judge
        
        L: shows that the profile should only really be used alongside proper investigation and should not be the sole piece of evidence brought to court as they aren't always accurate
- - - - first study conducted by lange in 1930
        
        investigated 13 MZ (identical) twins and 17 DZ (non-identical) twins where one of the twins had spent time in prison
        
        10 of the MZ twins and 2 of the DZ twins had a co-twin who had also spent time in prison
        
        concluded that genetic factors had a big role in offending behaviour
      - christianson (1977) studied 87 MZ and 147 DZ twins
        
        found a concordance rate of 33% for MZ and 12% for DZ
        
        suggests that there is a connection between genetics and offending behaviour
        
        suggests criminality is innate
      - evaluation
        
        1. poor control :(
        
        P: weakness - test had poor control
        
        E: lange's study in 1930 had poor control
        
        E:
        
        E: judgements made on zygosity were made based on appearance and not on DNA
        
        L: this is therefore a weakness as it lacks validity
        
        2. does not consider environmental factors