Paper 3 - Forensics

Outline Profiling Systems

* Top-Down Profiling

Developed in 1970s in the USA through interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial killers

* Bottom-Up Profiling

Created by David Canter in the early 1990s and adopted by the United Kingdom to create criminal profiles based on crime scene evidence

Define Top-Down Profiling

1. Data Assimilation - Collection of evidence
2. Crime Classification - Classify the criminal between organised and disorganised


1. Organised crimes are planned and the victim is often targeted
2. Disorganised crimes are unplanned and the victim is chosen at random
3. Crime Reconstruction - Crime is reconstructed to develop predictions of motive and behaviour
4. Profile Generation - A profile is developed based on predictions

Evaluate Top-Down Profiling

* Generalisability; Because of the nature of the original sample, top-down profiling can only really be used to profile serial killers and rapists, but not more common crimes such as burglary
* Unreliable sample; derived from 36 serial killers who may not be cooperative with police or too mentally incoherent
* Barnum Effect; The profiles are broad enough for criminals to fit into, the same tactics as horoscopes as claimed by Snook

Define Bottom-Up Profiling

Generates a profile of an offender through analysis of the crime scene.

Investigative psychology compares new crimes with a pre-existing database of crimes (smallest scale analysis) to predict behaviour

Outline Canter’s Psychological Theories

Interpersonal Coherence: The way an offender interacts with the victim could reflect everyday behaviour

Forensic Awareness: Behaviour at crime scene could suggest the offender has a criminal record

Time and Place: Could indicate where the the offender is through geographic profiling

Define Geographic Profiling

Incorporates Canter and Larkin’s “Circle Theory” that claims that offenders have a spatial mindset wherein they commit their crimes, which can be predicted to create a jeopardy surface

* Marauder Model: Offender operates in proximity to their home
* Commuter Model: Offender travels from their residence to another familiar location

Evaluate Bottom-Up Profiling

* Canter and Heritage identified clear behavioural patterns between 66 sexual assault cases
* Godwin and Canter found 85% of offenders lived in a circle that geographical profiling provided
* Copson found that bottom-up profiling was useful 84% of the time, but only helped solve 14% of cases and help catch offenders 3% of the time
* Empirical (smallest scale analysis) and wider application than top-down approach

Outline Biological Explanations

* Atavistic Explanation
* Genetic Explanations
* Neural Explanations

Define the Atavistic Explanation

In the 1870s, Cesar Lombroso claimed that criminals were ‘genetic throwbacks’ and had physical features present in primates and early humans, which made people unfit for modern civilisation and forced them into crime

* Prominent Cheekbones
* High Cheekbones
* Facial Asymmetry
* Dark Skin

Evaluate the Atavistic Explanation

* Goring found there was no evidence of distinct unusual facial and cranial features between 3000 criminals and 3000 non-criminals
* Social sensitivity; Certain atavist features are more found in African Americans, which means that
* Determinism; Claims that innate physical characteristics can indicate criminality

Outline Genetic Explanations

Twin Studies: **Raine** found concordance rates for violence at 52% for MZ twins and 21% for DZ twins

Candidate Genes: **Tihonen** found the MAOA gene to be linked with violent behaviour and the CDH13 gene to be linked with substance abuse

Evaluate the Genetic Explanations

* **Tiihonen** found that prisoners who committed two or more violent crimes were more likely to possess more instances of low-activity MAOA
* Other factors; **Christiansen** found concordance rates for offending behaviour to be higher in male twins than female twins
* Biological reductionism; Does not take into account social factors; Rose’s levels of explanation

Outline Neural Explanations

Suggest differences in the brains of criminals and non-criminals, as many criminals have APD, characterised by low emotion and lack of empathy

* **Raine** found abnormalities in the prefrontal cortex and limbic system (amygdala), which are linked with aggression and violent behaviour
* Prefrontal cortex: Moral and emotional regulation
* Amygdala: Identifies signs of fear and stress
* **Davidson** found violent criminals had lower serotonin levels compared to non-violent criminals

Evaluate Neural Explanations

* Causation; brain abnormalities may be due to biological factors or by early abuse
* **Mednick** found that convictions for adoptees were at 13.5% when biological parents had no conviction, but 20% when parents had convictions and 24.5% when both biological and adopted parents had convictions
* Biological reductionism; lowest level of explanation

Define Eysenck’s Theory

The criminal personality was innate and developmentally immature since children were not taught socialisation processes to be acceptable. The criminal personality was outlined into high levels of three features

* Extroversion: Low activation in CNS and ANS make extroverts thrill-seekers
* Neuroticism: High reactivity in ANS make neurotics more emotional
* Psychoticism: High testosterone make psychotics more aggressive and anti-social

Evaluate Eysenck’s Theory

* Holism; Eysenck considers the personality to be innate, but that insufficient upbringing was responsible for the personality in adulthood
* Both Farrington and Hollin found in separate studies that, while offenders tested high N and P scores, E scores were inconsistent
* Identifying traits in young people can help intervene and treat young people to control themselves

Define Kohlberg’s Cognitive Explanation

Kohlberg interviewed 72 Chicago boys on dilemmas, then conducted interviews with 58 for twenty years, and found different types of morality based on reasons behind decisions in the dilemmas.

* Pre-Conventional Morality
* Conventional Morality
* Post-Conventional Morality

Outline Pre-Conventional Morality

Kohlberg associated offenders with a more immature level of moral reasoning characterised with the idea of reward-punishment.

* Obedience/Punishment: The individual avoids punishment and gains awards
* Instrumental Orientation: If the reward is sufficient enough, then the punishment is negligble

Evaluate Moral Reasoning Theory

* **Gudjonsson and Sigurdsson** found 38% of juvenile offenders did not consider consequences while 36% did not believe they would get caught
* Gender bias; **Gilligan** argued that females focused on how actions affected others while males focused on justice

Outline Cognitive Distortions

* Hostile Attribution

The tendency to misinterpret the actions of others and blame them for own offending behaviour

* Minimalisation

The tendency to downplay or deny the seriousness of an offence committed

Evaluate Cognitive Distortions

* Schonenberg and Justye found violent offenders were more likely to label neutral expressions as hostile than a control group
* Hasmall found 36% of child molesters claimed victims gave consent while 35% denied sexual misconduct

Outline the Psychodynamic Explanations

* The Superego
* Defence Mechanisms

Outline the Superego

The superego is the “morality principle” of the tripartite personality, and so Blackburn argued three faulty superegos to be the cause of offending behaviour

* Weak Superego: The same-sex parent is absent and so the child does not internalise values, becoming dominated by Id impulses
* Deviant Superego: Internalises immoral values from same-sex parent
* Critical Superego: Internalises criticism and so does crime to be punished and satisfy the superego

Define Defence Mechanisms

Displacement: “Displaces” anger and stress to the victim

Denial: Justifies negative behaviour as actually being more rational and acceptable

Evaluate Psychodynamic Explanations

* Barbaree found 98% of criminals exhibited denial
* 54% of rapists had complete denial
* 66% of child sex criminals had complete denial
* Gender Bias; Because Freud believed women have incomplete superegos, they should commit more crime, but stats show otherwise (51% vs 5%)
* Psychic Determinism; If criminals have no control over their actions and behaviour is shaped during childhood, then offenders can’t be responsible

Define Differential Association Theory

Sutherland proposed that criminal behaviour was learnt through interactions with others, where a child will associate with pro-crime attitudes and become deviant.

Evaluate Differential Association Theory

* Osbourne and West found 40% of sons of criminal parents had a conviction by adulthood, compared to 13% of non-criminal sons
* Highest level of explanation; can explain crime that requires skill to learn the techniques of
* Environment Determinism; Does not acknowledge why people do not commit crime even if influenced

Define Custodial Sentencing

Involves the placement of an offender in a closed institution such as a prison or asylum


1. Deterrence


1. General deterrence
2. Individual deterrence
2. Incapacitation
3. Rehabilitation
4. Retribution

Evaluate Custodial Sentencing

* While in prison, criminals cannot interact or commit crime in regular society
* Ofsted found 2/3rd of institutions showed poor management and half were either inadequate or requiring improvement
* House of Commons found a decline in education quality and the number of prisoners in education or work training

Outline Psychological Effects of Prisons

* Stress: Suicide and self mutilation rates are higher in prison
* Institutionalism: Offenders become dependent on prison norms and routines
* Brutalisation: The reinforcement of criminal tenants within prison that are unacceptable in society
* Labeling: Identifying with being a criminal, as well as the loss of social contracts and employability

Evaluate Psychological Effects of Prisons

* Crighton and Towl found the risk of suicide was highest during the first thirty days of prison
* Coid found that offenders who received mental health treatment in prisons were 60% less likely to re-offend than untreated offenders
* Hollin claimed that prison could be a ‘home’ as the conditions inside could be preferable to outside
* Prison has been described as a school for criminal activity, and so arguments that petty criminals should be punished differently have been made

Outline Recidivism

* Adult: 45.5%
* Juvenile: 70%
*

Define Behaviour Modification

Desirable behaviour is identified and positively reinforced with tokens which can be exchanged for a reward

Evaluate Behaviour Modification

* Hobbs and Holt found positive improvement in juvenile criminals when a token economy is used
* Cannot be used outside of the prison
* Temporary; After treatment ends, offenders may revert to former behaviour without rewards

Define Anger Management

Rather than prevent anger, managements aims to identify and control responses through a form of CBT


1. Cognitive Preparation - Reflects on past experience and identifies triggers to anger
2. Skill Acquisition - Learns skills to reduce feelings of anger
3. Application Practice - Opportunities to practice anger management

Evaluate Anger Management

* Blackburn argues that there is no evidence to support anger management as a long-term solution
* Holism; anger management identifies all possible triggers to anger and tries to alleviate them through appropriate responses
* While practicing skills in a role-play setting may seem helpful, a real life situation would often feel much more intense and so offenders may revert

Define Restorative Justice Programmes

Allow the victims to meet with offenders in a controlled environment, where the offender sees the consequences of their actions on the “survivor”

Evaluate Restorative Justice Programmes

* Latimer found high satisfaction between both the survivor and offender, as well as lower recidivism
* Restorative justice can adapt according to the needs of the survivor and offender, but there are high drop out rates
* May not be appropriate for serious offence crimes such as rape or murder