PSYCHOLOGY - FORENSIC

What is offender profiling?

The idea that you can make assumptions about characteristics of an offender by a careful analysis of the offence they commit. Crime isn’t random, offenders have a modus operandi, a distinctive way they commit their crimes. Profilers then make assumptions, including demographics such as their age, gender, ethnicity, occupation, and education level.

what is offender profiling mainly used for?

Serious crimes like rape and murder, and even then mostly in cases of serial offence, when the offender repeats their crime over time.

What is the top down approach?

Profilers have created pre-existing categories of offender types called organised and disorganised offenders. They use evidence collected from the crime scene and other contextual information to fit the offender into one of these types. This is based on the personal experience an intuition of the profiler.

Where was the top down approach developed?

America

What is the bottom-up approach?

Profilers gather information from the crime scene such as location and criminal and victim behaviour. Statistical is then used comparing details of the crime to data collected from a large number of previous similar crimes.

Where was the bottom up approach developed?

The UK

What is the typology of the top down approach?

Technique developed the FBI’s behavioural science unit. 36 convicted murderers were interviewed (1979-83), with 118 known victims between them. As a result of their responses 24 were classified as organised offenders and 12 disorganised offenders.

What are organised offenders like?

They plan their crime, prepare by bringing weapons and restraints, tidy the scene, hide the body, have an an average or higher than average intelligence.

What are disorganised offenders like?

Don’t plan in advance, leave messy crime scenes, don’t try to hide the body, have below average intelligence.

What are the 4 stages of the Top-down approach?

• Stage 1 - Data assimilation; information is gathered from the crime scene.

• stage 2 - Crime scene classification; analysis of information suggests the criminal type.

• stage 3 - Crime reconstruction; the sequence both the offender and victim’s behaviour before and during the offence is hypothesised.

• stage 4 - profile generation; a range of inferences are made, such as demographic assumptions, physical features, and expected behaviours.

What is the strength of the top down approach?

• Ressier (1986) developed the definitions of organised and disorganised offender through extensive interviews with real serial offenders like Ted Bundy. As 24 could be classified as organised and 12 disorganised, this suggests there are distinct types of offender that may predict behaviour and aid apprehension.

What are the limitations of the top down approach?

• The research used a restricted sample of only 36 serial sex offenders, so the results may not be generalisable to the wider population. Also using a self-report method may have low validity, these offenders may lie.

• Canter (2004) reviewed 100 US serial killers, analysing 39 aspects of their offence. It was found disorganised features were rare and didn’t form a distinct type. This suggests that this is a false dichotomy between the two types and organisation is typical of most serial killers.

What is interpersonal coherence?

Suggests a persons interactional style with the victim is the same as with other people in their lives.

What is time and place significance?

The location is chosen by the offender, so it’s significant to them. This ties into the offenders mental model of their environment. Offenders are more likely to feel more comfortable in a place they know better.

What are criminal characteristics?

How the crime has been committed suggests aspects of the offenders characteristic, based on evidence from previous criminal studies.

What is criminal career?

How following crimes by the same offender change due to the criminal becoming more experienced.

What is forensic awareness?

Does the criminal show some knowledge of the criminal justice system and use techniques to reduce the evidence at the crime scene?

What is geographical profiling?

A branch of investigative psychology. It is focused on where an offender is likely to be based. It assumes the locations of crimes is not random.

What is least effort principle?

If there are multiple equal potential locations to commit a crime, the offender will pick the one closest to their home base.

What is distance decay?

The number of crimes will decrease the further away from the offenders base. However there is a buffer zone immediately around their home base to decrease the chance of being recognised.

What is the circle hypothesis?

Suggests that because offenders operate according to a limited spatial mindset, crimes radiate out from their home base creating a circle.

What is the strength of the bottom up approach?

• Canter and Larkin (1993) showed 87% of a sample of 45 British serial sexual assaulters were marauders. This supports the circle hypothesis and the idea that choice of the place of the crime is a significant factor in offender behaviour.

What are the limitations of the bottom up approach?

• It’s difficult to know is a criminal is a marauder or commuter before being apprehended. Also it can be difficult to distinguish offences by separate offenders, the number of offenders could be small or not all of the offenders recorded. These factors reduce the application of geographic profiling in directing police resources.

• As bottom up investigative psychology makes inferences based on careful statistical analysis from published research it is seen as more scientific than top down criminal investigative analysis, relying on the intuition and experience of individual criminal profilers.

What Is the strength of offender profiling?

• Snook (2007) found Canadian major crime officers agreed that criminal profiling helps solve cases (94%) and is a valuable investigative tool (88.2%). Positive feedback via customer satisfaction surveys suggests that detectives feel offender profiling is effective in helping them with their work.

What are the limitations of offender profiling?

• The effectiveness of offender profiling is difficult to assess. This is because it is never used in isolation. Other forensic techniques are used and so it can be difficult to identify how much a profile contributed to solving a particular case.

• Alison (2003) argues that many of the predictions in profiles are ambiguous. Alison gave two groups of police detectives the same profile, but each group was provided with the details of two very different offenders. In each group 75% rated the profile as somewhat accurate and 50% as generally accurate. This suggests that police are adding meaning to what are ambiguous statements and is an extension of the Barnum effect.

• All profiling methods suffer from the problem of statistically abnormal offenders. These peoples behaviour wouldn’t match what would be expected by intuition based on experience or by considering what is statistically probable behaviour based on previously solved cases of offenders who have actually been caught.

What is the historical approach?

Older explanations of criminality were often religous, suggesting criminals were possessed by demons. Lombroso challenged these ideas when he published his scientific theory of the atavistic form in" “the criminal man” 1876.

What is Atavistic form?

Criminals genetically are at a more primitive stage of human evolution than non-criminals, so are “throwbacks”. This means criminality is innate, so criminals are born not made.

What physical features can criminals be identified by?

• thieves - upturned nose

• murderers - hooked beak nose

What does the positivist school of criminology argue?

Criminal behaviour has distinct characteristics, and careful measurement of criminals will reveal the causes of criminal behaviour. Lombroso used careful biological measurements of over 4000 living and dead criminals to back up atavistic form.

What is the strength of the historical approach?

• Lombroso’s work was conducted with careful measurements, paving the way for more scientific approaches to criminal research. Also by rejecting free will in favour of biological determinism, causes outside of the criminals control could be considered in the justice system, helping arguments for less severe punishment.

What are the limitations of the historical approach?

• no control group was used, so the biological features he described could have been present in the general population

• Goring (1913) compared biological measurements of 3000 criminals with 3000 non criminals. He found “the physical and mental constitution of both criminal and law-abiding persons, of the same age, stature, class, and intelligence, are identical. there is no such thing as anthropological an criminal type”.

• Atavistic form is an example of scientific racism, claiming biological features such as dark skin identify criminality.

• Atavistic form may confuse cause and effect, it may be that people with certain physical features are rejected by society and turn to crime, this results in a criminal stereotype that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What do genetic explanations suggest?

There are inherited genes that make it more likely that an individual will engage with criminal behaviour.

What do family, twin, and adoption studies show?

If a criminal is inherited family studies should show criminal behaviour is inherited across multiple generations. Twin studies should show that monozygotic twins are more likely to both be criminals than dizygotic twins. Adoption studies should show that biological children of criminals go on to commit crimes even when raised with non-criminal families.

What is the MAOA gene?

Has been linked to high levels of criminal behaviour including aggression. MAOA metabolises a range of neuro-transmitters including serotonin, dopamine, and noradrenaline. This genetic variation potentially leads to poorer impulse control.

What is the strength of biological explanations of offending behaviour?

• Rhee (2002) included 51 twin and adoption studies in a large meta-analysis including over 110 thousand participants. The research assessed the relative influence of genetic and environmental factors on anti-social behaviour. The results of the data analysis found genetics accounted for 41% of the variance in anti-social behaviour and environmental effects 59%. This suggests that hereditary genetic factors are a significant driver of anti-social crime.

What are neural explanations of behaviour?

The range of biological processes and structures within the brain that leads to criminal behaviour.

What does noradrenaline do?

High levels result in aggression, likely due to it’s role in the fight or flight response.

What does serotonin do?

Linked to the ability to control impulsivity, if this is at a low level this could result in criminals being unable to resist emotional urges.

What does dopamine do?

Causes pleasure and linked to drug addiction. The need to acquire more of the drug to satisfy a biological craving can lead to criminality such as theft.

What is the result of reduced limbic system activity?

Emotions like guilt, empathy, and compassion are important in inhibiting violent action. Psychopaths are thought to have a problem with their limbic system resulting in not experiencing these emotions.

What us the frontal cortex responsible for?

Executive function, often overriding strong, aggressive emotional responses from other areas of the brain. Thought to be underdeveloped in violent criminals resulting in not being able to resist impulses.

What are the strengths of biological explanations of offending behaviour?

• Brunner (1993) conducted a case study on an extended family in the Netherlands whose males had a history of impulsive aggression, arson, and attempted rape. 5 males had defective MAOA genes producing no MAOA. Suggesting extreme levels of criminality can have a genetic origin that leads to a neurological abnormality.

• Raine (2000) measured the volume of the frontal lobe in people with APD compared to people without APD. It was found people with APD had an 11% reduction in prefrontal grey matter. This suggests the reduction in conscience, fear response and decision making deficits in people with APD is due to measurable neurological differences.

• Kiehl (2001) fMRI scanned criminal psychopaths (N=8), criminal non-psychopaths (N=8), and a control group of non criminals (N=8) while completing emotional processing tasks. It was found criminal psychopaths had reduced activity in a range of limbic system areas suggesting psychopathic offenders have neurological differences, leading them to experience less emotion lowing inhibition to violence.

What is the strength of general evaluations of biological explanations?

• the development of biological explanations for offending behaviour has important implications for the justice system. Judges who understand that criminal behaviour may be due to biological determinism may consider sentences that focus on treatments rather than punishment.

What are the limitations of general evaluations of biological explanations?

• Researchers who argue for biological determinist explanations for offending behaviour do need to consider the social sensitivity of their ideas. Genetic theories do need to consider the social sensitivity of their ideas. Genetic theories could be used to justify policies that discriminate against people with certain genes on the basis of reducing violent crime.

• Explaining criminality with biological explanations alone could be argues to be overly reductionist.

• As it is difficult to gain large numbers of willing criminal volunteers, especially criminals that are twins and / or adopted, many studies measure anti-social behaviour. This does no necessarily mean that these participants would actually perform criminal violence / offending behaviour.

What is Eysenck’s theory of the criminal?

Our personality type has a biological basis, as a criminal personality is due to the type of nervous system we inherit. How easily the nervous system responds to stimulus influences behaviour, potentially leading to innate offending behaviour.

What are the three personality dimensions?

• (E) Extravert to Introvert: Extraverts are outgoing and attention seeking due to chronically aroused nervous systems. Harder to condition/socialise, as failing to learn from mistakes. Introverts have and over-aroused nervous system and so do not seek attention

• (N) Neurotic to stable\; Neurotics are easy to upset, are overly anxious, and show obsessive behaviours due to a nervous system that is easily triggered by threats. People who are stable generally demonstrate calm/positive behaviour.

• (P) Psychoticism: measured on a scale of low to high, psychotics are emotionally cold and do not feel compassion.

What are the strengths of Eysenck’s theory of the criminal?

• McGurk and McDougall (1981) gave the Eysenck personality questionnaire to 100 convicted inmates and 100 trade based students aged 17-20. social class was controlled for. The results showed a higher number of people with extravert, neurotic, and psychotic personality types in the delinquent group.

What are the limitations of Eysenck’s theory of the criminal?

• Eysenck’s theory depends on one stable criminal personality type over time. Moffitt \91993) argues this is too simplistic and suggests a dual taxonomy. Life course persistent, people who are stable in offending behaviour over their life and adolescent limited, those who stop anti-social behaviour in adulthood. This better explains offending figures that show 10x higher levels of crime in adolescence.

• More modern personality theorists like Digman also suggest Eysenck is too simplistic. Digman’s (1990) 5 factor model includes other important dimensions of personality like conscientiousness and agreeableness, those may be more important in criminality, as not all NE personality types become criminals.

What do cognitive explanations suggest?

There are ways of thinking, internal mental processes about the world and moral decisions that lead to offending behaviour.

What are the three levels of moral reasoning (Kohlberg (1969))?

• Criminals are argued to be stuck at the first pre-conventional level. at this level morality is considered only in terms of how their actions affect them. There are 2 stages, sage 1 is punishment orientation correct behaviour will help them avoid punishment, so criminal behaviour will happen if they feel they can get away with the crime. Stage 2 is reward orientation correct behaviour is whatever will e the most rewarding, so criminal behaviour will happen if they feel the reward outweighs the risk.

• Criminal behaviour is less likely if people are in the conventional level as they consider what is best for their personal relationships and society or finally the post conventional level as people now consider general moral principles and what is fundamentally right or wrong.

What are cognitive distortions?

Failures of the mind in accurately representing reality. Thinking is irrational, leading to misunderstanding what is true about your own or others behaviour. This misunderstanding of reality leads to behavioural responses that can be criminal in nature.

What is hostile attribution bias?

When our inferences about the other peoples internal mental states are biased to assume they have negative intentions. These assumptions are made from misreading body language or what someone says as aggressive.

What is minimalisation?

When interpreting our own behaviour is seen as less serious than it really is. They may deny that their actions actually caused harm to the victim or the victim was in some way to blame. This attempts to justify their offending behaviour and reduce personal feelings of guilt.

What are the strengths of differential association theory?

• Hollin and Palmer (1998) assessed the level of moral reasoning in offenders compared to non delinquents, all were between 13-22 years old. Male offenders showed poorer moral reasoning on 10 of the 11 questions compared to male non offenders, suggesting offenders do have developmental moral deficits.

• Understanding the link between offending behaviour and cognitive processing means CBT could be used to change offender’s irrational thinking. This application of psychological research could reduce the cost offending has on the economy.

What are the limitations of differential association theory?

• Kohlberg’s theory is based on the use of hypothetical “dilemma” tasks. Its likely due to social desirability bias people are unlikely to respond honestly, or even know how they would act, meaning generalisability to real-life offences is limited.

• Kohlberg developed his theory using an all-male sample. Kohlberg assumed his theory would apply to women. However, when women were tested, they appeared to be less morally developed. As men were significantly more likely to be offenders, this suggests Kohlberg’s ideas are not generalisable. Gilligan (1982) argues Kohlberg’s entire theory is gender biased, focusing on make ideas of justice, not female ideas of “care.”