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1.2 - Coggle Diagram
1.2
Forensics
- Forensic science refers to any type of science that is used in the legal or justice system to support and uphold the law. Forensic DNA samples include blood, semen, skin flakes, hair, fingerprints, shoe prints, clothing fibers, weapons.
- Alec Jefferys, a scientist, invented DNA profiling in 1985, where it was first used to investigate the rape and murder of two girls in Leicestershire in 1983 and 1986.
CASE STUDY 2 - Colette Aram case. Colette Aram was raped and murdered in 1983, prior to the use of DNA as am investigatory technique. After the murder, Paul Hutchinson, a psychological graduate, stopped for a ploughmen's meal at the local pub. The landlady noticed blood on his hand. He later sent a letter taunting officers that he was still free, stating “you will never get me”.
- pos? - trustworthy???? - In tracing an individual and ability to build a picture of events, as well as give objective findings. Revolutionary Scientific developments are expanding and are now much cheaper. Another advantage of DNA evidence is that it can be found in almost every cell in the human body, this is effective in providing high reliability as everyone’s DNA is unique.
NEG? contamination is a high risk. Contamination might happen at a crime scene or lab, which can lead to a miscarriage of justice. It has been raised about police keeping the DNA of so many people were a danger to our civil liberties.
- evidence - collected from the crime scene to be analyzed to reach a conclusion in which they can then provide a court testimony about the findings.
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- DNA is found in almost every cell in the human body; however, each person's DNA is unique, with the exception of monozygotic twins, meaning the offender is easily identifiable through DNA sampling.
- recent years - highly sensitive techniques have been developed, leading to rapid analysis, which has made DNA profiling the most important and revolutionary development.
- CASE STUDY - proven successful in the Collin Pitchford case. Collin Pitchford was first convicted of rape and Murder, which had been identified by DNA profiling after he murdered 2 girls in neighboring villages. Initially, Police believed Richard Buckland to be the murderer, however, a comparison of DNA semen samples found he was innocent. Using the technique, Jefferies determined that the semen found in both cases came from the same man. Police then decided to take blood samples from 4583 men in the area. Pitchford Persuaded a friend to take the test for him. However, a woman overheard the conversation and reported it to the police, and DNA analysis confirmed his guilt, he was arrested and found guilty.
- an individual's DNA profile is unique, blood relatives have similar DNA. Hutchinson’s son was detained for drunk driving, a DNA swab taken provided a familiar match to the paper towel used in the pub, meaning Hutchinson was arrested and charged. This case study signifies the revolutionary links that can be made between forensic DNA.
December 2008, the equality human rights act ruled that DNA could not be saved for those found innocent, as well as the 2012 protection act which requires all DNA samples to be destroyed within 6 months. As the Colin Pitchford case shows, DNA evidence is rarely used as the sole basis for a prosecution case.
Surveilance
- CCTV is used by police in criminal investigations as it can give 24-hour coverage of a location, provide a visual record of a crime and help to identify a perpetrator.
- The London riots prove the cruciality of CCTV within a criminal investigation. The police had more than 100,000 hours of footage to review, where CCTV images were used to identify offenders guilty of looting, as well as gave the police makes and registrations of cars used to run down 2 police officers.
- Jamie Bulger case CCTV from the new stand shopping center in Bootle 1993 showed Thompson and Venables casually observing children, scouting a target..
- Covert surveillance is planned by police and those being monitored are not aware they are being watched. information can be gained undercover
- tracking, intercepting mail, static surveillance e.g., unmarked police cars, mobile surveillance and undercover officers.
- Rachel Nickell case. Rachel was killed on Wimbledon common on the 15th of July 1992, where she had been repeatedly stabbed 49 times, sexually assaulted and slashed next to her 2-year-old son, who witnessed the attack but could not identify the murderer. 32 men were questioned, but with a lack of forensic evidence, they found themselves without any real leads.
-. CCTV is useful in providing a visual record of the crime, by identifying the perpetrator and showing the time and conditions of the crime. This can further than be released to the media to support the investigation, for example, witness appeals.
- CCTV includes images and videos from the public and private cameras, in fact, each person is captured up to 30 times a day on CCTV. This is a major investigative technique, where around 1.5 million cameras are in airports, stations, cities, big stores, within the UK.
- Following the riots, the number of people who support CCTV increased by a third, where ¾ of people felt safer knowing CCTV was in operation.
- due to possible infringement of civil liberties, there are strict rules on Covert human intelligence sources. Covert Surveillance is planned and can take several forms, these can include
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- Eyewitness's places Colin Stagg near the scene of the crime, which also fitted the profile the police had created; therefore, an undercover task was set up to prove Colin Stagg. A young blonde police officer, ‘Lizzie James’ contacted him via lonely hearts columns and subsequently met him for a date. Prior to this, they had exchanged sexual fantasy letters in an attempt for Collin to incriminate himself. However, with the unsuccessfulness of this strategy and the police’s excessive manner to incriminate him, the judge concluded that the entrapment evidence could not be included within the case. The Murderer was in fact Robert Napper, who had previously murdered a young woman and her daughter.
- Covert surveillance - USEFUL gain convictions against major drug cartels, to gather high quality information and intelligence. This investigative technique can also be planned and target a specific person closely, while following strict rules for preventing unwarranted intrusions into personal lives.
- CCTV is arguably not useful as it is often fixed so cannot follow a target around, as well as criminals aware of the locations of cameras so may work to avoid them. Poor quality images and lack of sound may hinder its essentialness as well as CCTV is not usually present in remote areas or private residences, meaning it is not useful for a wide range of crimes. Furthermore, covert surveillance breaches the HRS 1998 “right to private and family life” and can potentially become a case of entrapment.
- CCTV showed Hon Venables and Robert Thompson lead a 2-year-old, James Bulger, away from his mum. After the police viewed the footage, they assumed the killers would be between 12 and 18, evidently showing the images as a prominent piece of evidence within the investigation
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Interviewing
- WHAT? - Accounts given by a witness to a crime and are generally accepted as accurate accounts of crime. Police can interview experts and specialists for information and advice on different aspects of their investigation.
- WHAT AFFECTS MEMORY? - memory acquisition is vital in the accuracy of the EWT. There are several factors which will influence this:
- MEMORY RETENTION - Memory retention will also affect the accuracy of the EWT. Retention refers to the storing of information in the memory.
- Libby Squire - 21 years old, on a night out in Hull when she was abducted, raped and murder by Paul Relowicz, who was convicted based upon a picture by student saw him staring though the window. It was then revealed he had previous convictions of Voyeurism, performing sexual acts in public and stealing underwear from women's homes.
pos? very influential in identifying a suspect, as juries give more weight to EWT than other evidence, as well as using the cognitive interviewing technique, developed by psychologists, that increases validity of EWT.
- The Devlin committee found that juries will convict in 74% of cases where line up ID was the only prosecution evidence. However, the innocent project (USA) has found that of 239 wrongful convictions that were overturned due to DNA evidence, 70% were convicted due to EWT, including 15 death row cases.
- weapon focus effect - This means when a weapon is used the EW is likely to focus on the weapon and prevented from forming detailed memory of the offender.
- Duration of time exposed to crime; this means that the longer the exposure the more likely you are to remember.
- Time of day will also impact this as Kuehn (1974) found EWT was best in full daylight or at night when paid closer attention due to conditions.
- Time distortion - meaning witnesses may overestimate how emotional or dramatic events are, violence distraction, meaning more violent events will be less accurate due to anxiety,
- WHAT AFFECTS MEMORY RETENTION? The 2 main factors which will affect Memory retention are time and post event discussion. Memory traces fade over time, however memory for faces fade over time. Post event, EW often discusses the event meaning it adds more detailed recall but also reduces accuracy as one witness who saw a knife may influence the of another witness who saw no murder weapon, in which these details are essential in an investigation.
- Officers will attempt to separate witnesses when they get to the scene to prevent the post event discussion. When recalling the event, memory retrieval takes place, such as seeing someone in a line up, as well as leading questions asked by the police. The police may ask some accurate questions such as, “was the rear window of the car smashed when the cars hit”, as they know the answer from the scene, in order to test the witnesses recalling and memory retention
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NEG? may lead to unreliable evidence and countless wrongful convictions, which can result in a miscarriage of justice. In addition, problems with memory will hinder the accuracy of this evidence due to memoryon every level- acquisition, retention, and retrieval, including post event discussion and weapon focus. Memory also fades over time so accounts must be collected as soon as possible
Geographical profiling
- Geographical Profiling is a method of criminal investigation that examines the locations of connected series of crimes to determine the most likely area of offender residence.
- In 1993, Canter and Larkin argued if you draw a circle around the crime scenes, the killer is 85% likely to live there. This is the Buffer zone; this means an offender will avoid offending too close to home in case they are recognized. - eg an offender wouldn’t burgle a Neighbour as they are more likely to be caught.
- The least effort principle refers to when an offender is given 2 identically attractive targets, they will choose the one nearest home.
- In 1986, Psychologist David Canter aided police in their investigation of John Duffy and a string of rapes and murders in London. In the 1980’s, John Duffy carried out 24 sexual acts and 3 murders on women near railway stations in North London.
pos? - geographical profiling has had some success in predicting where to find the offender in a range of crimes including rape, arson and burglary,
- It aids in understanding spatial behavior of an offender and focuses the investigation on a smaller area.
- Geographical profiling is used alongside investigative psychology as it shares the same principles. Geographical profiling works to examine the offender's pattern of crimes to determine if they are a ‘marauder’ meaning operates near their home base, or a ‘commuter’ meaning they are likely to have travelled a distance away from their usual residence.
- Canter applied psychological principles to suggest where the offender was living, the type of employment and their social life, based on information about the crimes, which enabled the police to prioritize resources and narrow down a list of suspects.
NEG? it is required that the profiler must be sure the crimes were committed by the same person and sure that they haven’t missed crimes that lie outside the circle center point, Canter’s model assumes the offender will follow one model or the other.
- Canter identified the offender: Lives in Kilburn, marriage problems, physically small, unattractive and has a need to dominate women. It was later identified that John Duffy, lived in Kilburn, separated from his wife, was 5’4, had acne and has a history of violence with women. This profile of Duffy was significant and led to his eventual arrest.
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