Forensic Psych Exam 3

What is offender profiling?

A behavioral and investigative tool that is intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown criminal subjects, offenders, or known criminals. This definition faces some disagreement.

What “equation” does offender profiling follow?

What + How = Who

What is the main idea of profiling?

A method to provide advice, NOT solve cases. It is also NOT admissible in court.

What are the goals of profiling?

Narrow the field of possible suspects

My predictions for where and how the next crime may occur

Provide interrogation advice

What events provide a brief history of profiling?

1888: Police surgeon Dr. Thomas Bond theorized that the wound patterns of Jack the Ripper’s victims could reveal clues.

1956: Psychiatrist James Brussels worked with the NYPD to construct a profile of the mad bomber.

1970s: the FBI became involved in psychological profiling, and they popularized this technique.

1990s and beyond: many attempts to scientize profiling and move beyond the purview of the FBI. This was moving away from hunches, guesswork, and the gut feelings of investigators.

What factors do you have to consider when looking at an offender’s MO?

Geographical characteristics, where the crime was committed, how far from their comfortable zone, if it was across state lines

Temporal characteristics, time of day, was it a week day or weekend

Target selection behavior, including offender behavior, if they picked surrogate victims, specific characteristics

Control behaviors, interpersonal crimes, are they socially skilled or incompetent

Escape planning behaviors

Sexual behavior (for sexual offenses), immaturity, impotency

Property stolen, range of crimes, motive

Signatures, going beyond what is necessary to complete the crime, this is overkill and unique to the offender

What are general signatures?

Actions that are unique to the offender and consistent across crimes.

What are some examples of general signatures?

Unusual sexual behaviors

Special bindings or restraints

Ritualistic behavior

Posing or dressing the body

Excessive force or control, motivation, anger

Taking trophies, clothing, jewelry, property, body parts

A calling card

What are common characteristics of offenders?

Ethnicity; 9/10 victims are the same race as the offender, signatures could indicate ethnicities or countries of origin

Gender motivations

Age range could indicate impulsiveness, experience

Marital status and relational competencies

Employment record and occupational skills

Reactions and answers to police questioning

Degree of sexual maturity

Likelihood of recidivism, driving factors

Likelihood of previous reoffending, escalation

Nature of previous convictions, types of crimes

What are suggestions for interviews with organized offenders?

Direct confrontation

Respects competency, want to be treated with respect

Don’t expect “free information,” negotiation

No use of “false evidence,” less likely to fall for it

Conduct when suspect has no time to gather thoughts, they can come up good answers when given time

What are suggestions for interviews with disorganized offenders?

Empathy

Constant stream of conversation

Use positive relationship

Most likely to slip up

What is deductive criminal profiling?

Going from evidence to reasoning, using no prior statistics or research.

What does deductive criminal profiling use?

Evidence left at the crime scene or on the victim.

What is an example of deductive criminal profiling?

The body of a female victim is found in a locked warehouse in a busy waterfront street. Therefore, the offender can easily access a warehouse and feels comfortable.

What is the problem with deductive criminal profiling?

While it is flexible and relies upon logical reasoning, the underlying logic can be wrong.

What is an example of faulty deductive criminal profiling?

A rapist had longer nails on one hand that the other, so he must be a guitar player. In reality, he was a tire restorer and used that hand dominantly.

What is inductive criminal profiling?

Going off of previous statistics and cases/evidence to come to conclusions about offenders. It is more scientific, but difficult to use in unusual cases.

What does inductive criminal profiling use?

Previously solved cases and research.

What is an example of inductive criminal profiling?

80% of serial killers who attack people in parking lots are white males. Our offender has attacked three people in parking lots, therefore, it is likely that our offender is a white male.

What is the problem with inductive criminal profiling?

Offenders who commit similar crimes would have to have had similar background characteristics, because it does not address unique crimes.

What are some other problems with profiling?

It lacks a strong theoretical base

Profiles are too ambiguous to be useful

Does not consider the impact of the situation on the offender, things like them being disorganized or getting interrupted.

What is the problem with professional profiles?

They are not accurate. They do not always produce profiles that are better than profiles produced by non-professionals

What are the assumptions of criminal profiling?

Homology, behavior consistency, and behavioral distinctiveness

What is homology?

Offenders who have similar personal characteristics will behave in a similar way when they commit crimes, and their crimes will match their daily lives.

What is evidence for homology?

Adult and juvenile arsonists, adult burglars, adult murderers, and internet profiles suggests that people with similar characteristics tend to offend in a similar way.

What are contradictory findings for homology?

Robbery and rape have mixtures of organized and disorganized features, so evidence is mixed.

What is behavior consistency?

Offenders will behave somewhat consistently from one crime to the next.

What is behavioral distinctiveness?

The idea that there will be differences between different offenders in the way that the behave when offending.

What is evidence for behavioral distinctiveness?

Burglary, robbery, rape, murder, arson, and car theft all show evidence for this.

What is evidence against behavioral distinctiveness?

Not all offender behaviors are consistent over time. Unsurprisingly, offenders tend to be more consistent for behaviors that are under their control, like location, rather than due to things in the situations control, like property being stolen, that create inconsistencies.

What did Copson’s 1995 study look at?

184 questionnaires relating to advice given during live investigations; 61.4% of which were murder.

What did Copson’s 1995 study show in terms of investigators opinions?

53.8% said profiling advice was of value

Only 14.1% said that profiling directly contributed to solving a case and only 2.7% to the identification of an offender

Only 16.3% said that profiling advice was directly acted on

Little direct benefit and evidence

What benefits to profiling did Copson’s 1995 study give?

Introduced new ideas

Stimulated intelligent, rational consideration of investigative options

Promoted a more well-rounded view of the crime

Helped to confirm previous police hypotheses and bolster confidence

Other potential indirect uses

What did Alison et al, in 2003, find from 21 offender profiles?

20% of the profile claims were ambiguous

50% of the profile claims were not falsifiable

60% of the profile claims were unsubstantiated

Profilers were, however, more reasonable, communicative, and involved

What did Kocsis et al., 2000, find about profilers versus nonprofilers?

Open-ended description of offender

45-item forced-choice section

Adjective Checklist (ACL)

They gave the materials to 5 profilers, 35 police officers, 30 psychologists, 31 psych students, 20 self-declared psychics, and a control group of 23 non-psychology students.

They examined performance overall and across 4 sub-scales (cognitive processes, physical characteristics, offense behaviors, and personal history).

There was no statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of overall accuracy. Casts serious doubt over the ability of profilers and validity of profiles.

However, when profilers were compared to non-profilers, profilers answered more questions correctly overall and in each subscale, although there was only statistically significant difference on cognitive processes.

When is a confession considered false?

It is elicited in response to a demand for a confession and is either intentionally fabricated or is not based on actual knowledge of facts from the crime.

What did Kassin, 2008, say about false confessions?

Police officers and jurors cannot distinguish true from false confessions.

How can investigators detect that a confession is false?

They can’t prove if a crime did or didn’t happen, scientific evidence exonerates one person and indicates another, the real perpetrator could be apprehended, and other evidence like a false alibi or witness could emerge.

What are the three types of false confessions?

Voluntary, coerced/pressured compliant, and coerced/pressured internalized

What are voluntary false confessions?

Given without any external pressure from police, these are rare but much more likely in well-known cases. Could be covering something up or an anxious offender.

What were Gudjonsson’s four suggested reasons for voluntary false confessions?

A morbid desire for notoriety

Inability to distinguish fact from fantasy

Relieve feelings of guilt

Protect somebody else from harm

Who volunteers false confessions?

Those actively involved in criminal behaviors

With a lessened grip on reality

With OCD; they are more anxious, submissive, and prone to guilt

What are coerced/pressured compliant confessions?

An answer to the interrogators demand even when they know they are innocent, the most common and is often retracted at the end of the interview. More than 1/3 come from juveniles.

What are potential reasons for coerced-compliant false confessions?

Evidence of police wrongdoing: collusions, altering statements, suppressing evidence, wrongful convictions, skewed testimony from forensic “experts”

Poor interviewing skills: no lawyer or appropriate adult

Third degree tactics: beatings, threats to the suspect or their family/friends, torture, mock executions

To avoid punishment and/or gain promised benefit: get less interrogation or charges, hoping evidence will exonerate them later

What are coerced/pressured internalized confessions?

The rarest kind, the person becomes convinced of their own guilt even if only briefly.

What individual factors predict the likelihood of false confessions?

Suggestibility

Compliance

Fantasy proneness

Anxiety and low self-esteem

Low IQ

Learning disability

Mental illness

Age

What situational factors predict the likelihood of false confessions?

Pressure via maximization and minimization techniques

Suspect may be tired/hungry/afraid

Suspect may believe that the short-term benefit outweighs the long-term costs

Leading questions that influence answers

What is maximization vs minimization?

Bad cop vs Good cop

What are vulnerabilities for coerced internalized false confessions?

A history of substance abuse or other brain function interference

Inability to detect discrepancies between what they observed and what was erroneously suggested to them (interference in source monitoring)

Factors associated with mental state like severe anxiety, confusion, or guilt

What are other risk factors for internalization?

Memory distrust syndrome

Dissociation

Poor source monitoring

Repeated interviews and interrogations

What length guidelines for interrogations impact false confessions?

Advised that single interrogation sessions not exceed 4 hours

Drizin and Leo, 2004, found that 34% lasted 6-12 hours, 39% lasted 12-14, and the mean duration was 16.3

Sleep deprivation strongly impairs functioning and emotional responses

What did Kassin and Kiechel, 1996, find about false confessions in the lab?

Participants asked to type letters read out to them at either slow or fast rate and told not to press the “alt” key because it will cause a crash

Computer was actually timed to crash (as if the alt key was pressed)

Some participants were told false witness testimony by researchers, like “I saw you press the alt key”

Participants asked to sign confessions, if they did they were compliant to pressure

Asked by a confederate what happened, to see if they internalized their confession/told the confederate that they caused something

Looked at task difficulty and witness presence, these increased rates of confession

These findings were replicated even when there was a financial cost to confessing

What is the Reid technique for interrogation?

Involves 3 general stages and switches from physical to psychological torture methods since police were no longer allowed to use physical force (they had to use confessions and eyewitnesses).

What are the stages of the Reid technique?

Gather evidence

Conduct a non-accusatorial interview to assess deception and guilt

Conduct an accusatorial interrogation to obtain a confession

What happens in the accusatorial stage of the Reid technique?

It lasts until there is a confession, and many innocent people make it to this stage when they shouldn’t.

What did a Reid technique self report study show?

631 North American detectives were more likely than not to do the following:

Use minimization

Pretend to have independent evidence of guilt

Isolate suspect from family and friends

Establish rapport/gain suspect’s trust

Offer sympathy and moral justification

Interrupt any denials

Appeal to suspect’s self-interest

What problems does the Reid technique have?

Relies on the investigator’s ability to detect deception

Interrogators may have biases

Impacted by false confessions

What is an alternative to the Reid technique?

PEACE model: Planning, engage and explain (rapport), account (interview), closure, evaluation

How can false confessions be minimized?

Video record interviews to examine them/the process

Use ethical interviewing rather interrogation

Increased awareness of individual vulnerabilities

Requirement of corroboration

Jury training

What is deception?

An act intended to foster in another person a belief or understanding which the deceiver considers to be false. This definition is up for debate.

Why might someone lie?

They believe the information they do have is not good enough

A means of self-preservation

Because they think they won’t be caught

To protect others

What figures and study show the prevalence of deception?

People lie on average about twice a day; in a study by Paulo et al. in 1996, US college students and people of the public kept a diary for 7 days about their social interactions.

Everyday, 25% of all interactions were lies

People felt comfortable lying, but men did more than women.

Liars were only detected 18% of the time

What do people think that liars do, even though its not all true?

All cultures believe that liars experience fear, shame, or cognitive difficulties

Liars can be detected from arm, hand, and finger movements;

Liars can be detected from changes in their speech rate;

Liars can be detected because they make noises (like sighs);

You need to know a person to tell whether the person is lying:

Lies can be detected from the tone of voice;

Liars can be detected from cues in the eyes other than direction of gaze;

Liars sweat;

Liars play with their hair, clothes, or objects;

Lies can be detected from unspecified changes in the behavior;

Lies can be detected from weak arguments and logic

What two main assumptions are at play during deception?

Emotional and cognitive load approaches

What is the emotional approach in deception processes?

States that lying causes emotions that differ from those experienced while telling the truth.

What is the cognitive load approach in deception processes?

Based on the fundamental premise that lying may be more mentally demanding than telling the truth.

How does deception show up in reality?

Examination of participants from 75 countries and 43 languages demonstrated that inaccurate beliefs about lie detection are common. Inaccurate lying beliefs include eye contact, hesitation, and number of words spoken.

Men and women are equally inaccurate in detecting deception.

How do law enforcement professionals do in detection ability?

There are law enforcement professionals that are confident in their ability to detect deceit

Most studies show that confidence, experience, or professional status are NOT related to ability. They are no better than chance, and they use unreliable cues.

Police are the least accurate detectors of lies (and offenders are the best). They might have a lie bias from their work.

FBI agents are no better than undergraduates

Confidence is unrelated to accuracy

Doctors cannot detect when patients are lying

The average detection rate of humans as lie detectors is 57%. We are much better at deceiving than detecting.

What cues do indicate lying?

Tense

Pupil dilation

Fewer details

Fewer hand, arm, finger movements

Fewer blinks

Longer response

Higher voice pitch

Voice change, dry mouth, quick breaths

Speech is passive instead of involved and expressive

What are some ways to detect deception?

Ask for elaboration and repetition of previous statements.

How are lies detected in children?

More than 100,000 children give criminal witness testimony in the U.S. every year. Clinicians and researchers cannot assess lying in children provided with false statements.

What did Leech et al., 2004, find about lying in children?

Told kids ages 3-11 to not peek at a toy, and then had adults guess who was lying.

Undergraduates: at the level of chance, 51%

Customs officers: at the level of chance, 49%

Police officers: significantly below the level, 44%

The police officers were the most confident but the least accurate.

Across age, there was virtually no difference in people's abilities to detect the children's lies.

What are some theories of the polygraph?

Stress induces changes in the autonomic nervous system

If answered honestly, questions that would incriminate the interviewee tend to cause them stress

Autonomic stress is measurable through physiological changes like BP, HR, breathing rate, and sweat production

Assume guilt is a major cause of stress

Polygraphs assume that an innocent person responds equally to assertions of guilt and innocence

What are the uses of polygraph?

Helps in criminal investigations when the suspect is asked to take a polygraph test

Verifying a crime has occured by testing the victim

Monitoring sexual offenders on probation

Pre-employment screening for security agencies and police

What are the two main types of polygraph tests?

Comparison question test (CQT) and concealed information test (CIT)

What types of questions does the Comparison Question Test?

Irrelevant (neutral) questions used to obtain a baseline

Relevant (guilty) questions used to talk about the crime

Comparison (designed to evoke a strong response, but not about the crime) used to address prior antisocial behavior.

What are examples of questions in the CQT?

Irrelevant: are you left handed?

Relevant: did you assault so and so on March 11th?

Comparison: before age 25, did you ever take something that wasn’t yours?

What is phase 1, pretest interview, of the CQT?

Preliminary interview with suspect to develop the comparison questions

What is phase 2, polygraph exam, of the CQT?

Questions are asked while the suspect’s physiological responses are measured.

What is phase 3, scoring, of the CQT?

Polygraph examiner scores the physiological responses to determine if the suspect is truthful, deceptive, or inconclusive.

What is phase 4, posttest interview, of the CQT?

If a suspect is judged as deceptive, they are pressured to confess.

What is the validity of CQTs?

Field and lab studies show that the CQT is rather good at classifying guilty suspects (75-84% accuracy). However, the accuracy rates are lower for judging innocent suspects (53-77%). Field studies have to be interpreted with caution, because they could have false confessions.

What problems does the CQT have?

Assumes that innocent suspects will respond with more arousal to the control questions than relevant ones.

However, innocent suspects may react more strongly to the details of the crime they are being falsely accused of (the relevant questions), than to a control question about a rather mild transgression in the past.

What are countermeasures to being detected as lying?

Suppress response to relevant question: mental calming

Augment response to control question: bite tongue; press toes on tack

Daydreaming while answering questions: destress

Physical measures more effective than other counter-measures; combining several is even more effective

What does the concealed information test do?

Assess if suspect has information that only the criminal would know

Asks the suspects MC questions, one option is correct; measures reaction to each question; guilty will have a specific response to the correct option

Rarely used in North America; in less than 10% of FBI cases

What is the CIT accurate at?

Identifying innocent participants

Around 95% correctly identified in lab studies

In field studies, 96% of innocent suspects cleared by the test

What is the CIT not accurate at?

Identifying guilty participants

Around 85% correctly identified in lab studies

In field studies, 56% of guilty suspects failed the test

What problems does the CIT have?

Innocents may know about crime scene details from the media

Guilty suspects may not have perceived certain details from the crime scene they were at

What are countermeasures to the CIT?

Both physical and mental countermeasures dramatically reduce the effectiveness of the CQT, but the CIT does not appear to be affected as much by countermeasures like anti-anxiety drugs.

What ethical concerns of the polygraph?

Is it worth the human cost as a national security tool?

Is it ethical to teach countermeasures?

What prefrontal structural abnormalities show up in liars?

fMRI reported stronger activity in the PFC

White matter in the PFC may be necessary and sufficient to engage in lying.

Pathological liars have significantly more PFC white matter, followed by normal controls, and then antisocial control (those high in psychopathy).

Kids reach adult levels of white matter between 10-12 years. So children start to become adept liars at 10 years old.

So, does a neurodevelopmental increase in PFC white matter as a predisposition to deceitful personality.

What does Parkinson’s disease have to do with deception?

Parkinson’s causes a loss of dopamine-producing cells, widespread reductions in brain functioning, and commonly a cognitive deficit in executive dysfunction. People with Parkinson’s can often be characterized as industrious, serious, inflexible, and overly honest.

What did Abe et al., 2018, find about deception in Parkinsons patients?

Studied 32 Parkinson's patients and twenty matched controls. Since this disease causes damage to the PFC, those with Parkinson's have a difficult time making deceptive responses. They showed a reduced ability to lie.

What is functional lie detection with the hippocampus?

Lee et al. found that hippocampus damage would not affect someone’s ability to lie. When someone was lying, there was no activation involving hippocampal formation, which is activated when accessing memories.

What are some shortcomings of functional lie detection?

Companies have tried to market the use lie detection

There have been three failed attempts to admit fMRI data admitted to court

It is NOT accepted as reliable in the scientific community

It is very difference in lab vs real-world settings

There is a fully unknown real-world error rate

What is the misinformation effect?

Post-event information can be things we learned AFTER the fact that we incorporate into memory as have happened DURING.

This can be media, people, police, etc.

What are memory in eyewitness memories?

The process of remembering is constructive, not reproductive, so our minds do NOT accurately record everything like videos. We cannot just play back memories in our minds exactly as they happened, this process is highly vulnerable to a number of influences.

What is the fuzzy trace theory?

People are more likely to misremember events when they rely on gist information than if they rely on verbatim information.

What is gist information?

Things like schemas and associations that are internally-driven and spontaneous false memories, referred to as autosuggestions.

What is verbatim information?

Things like suggestions, leading questions, manipulations about particular things like descriptors, that are externally-driven and suggestion induced.