FORENSICS - Top down approach
- Created by: EmilyEther
- Created on: 03-12-18 18:40
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- Top down approach
- General
- American method based on FBI research ('78) - based on sexual based serial killers
- in depth interviews with convicted murderers
- murders classified as 'organised' or 'disorganised' (Rossiter - '88)
- what happened -> why (motive) -> who
- American method based on FBI research ('78) - based on sexual based serial killers
- Organised criminals
- features:
- planned crimes
- self-control (wait for victim)
- cover tracks (cear up, mve body etc.)
- victim = stranger (stalked / selected but doens't know them)
- personalities:
- intelligent
- skilled occupation
- socially / sexually competent
- angry / depressed
- features:
- Disorganised criminals
- features:
- unplanned crime (spur of the moment, taking advantage of situation)
- haphazard methos
- leaves clues
- possible they know / have relationship to victim
- personalities:
- socially inadequate
- unskilled
- first/last born child
- confused / frightened
- features:
- Evaluation (A03)
- only applicable to (sexually motivated) murders
- Based on interviews with 36 convicted sexually motivated murderers
- Specific crimes - difficult to generalise different crimes (robberies etc), limiting the use as a procedure
- They got caught - cleverer murderers out there that didn’t get caught
- They may lie - make themselves look scarier
- Just males - no females interviewed
- Arthur Shawcross case - Profile was accurate - profiler also gave advice on how to catch him - said he would go back to bodies
- Arguably relies on hunches made by experiences investigators - lacks scientific rigour
- Jackson and Bekerian (1997) - suggest smart offenders can read about how profiles are constructed and deliberately mislead profilers using misleading clues
- raises question about whether info about the techniques used by the police should be generally available
- police perceive it to be useful - Copson (1995) - questioned 184 police officers, 82% said the technique was operationally useful, 90% said they would use it again
- but judgement may be flawed - Alison (2003) - over 50% of the officers rated a fake profile they were given as generally accurate or very accurate..
- How approach is carried out by investigators
- 1. PROFILING INPUTS
- description of crime scene (photograph & sketches)
- background about victim
- details of crime itself (weapon, cause of death, autopsy report)
- all info should be included (even trivial)
- no possible suspects should not be considered
- 2. DECISION PROCESS MODELS
- make decisions about data and organises it into meaningful data
- considered:
- murder type: mass / spree / serial
- time factors: crime take long / short time, day / night?
- location factors: crime scene = same / diff than murder scene
- 3. CRIME ASSESSMENT
- classified as organised / disorganised
- presumes there is a correspondence between offences and offenders
- 4. CRIMINAL PROFILE
- profile of offender
- description = help investigators catch the offender
- anticipate how they will react during interview and investigation
- 5. CRIME ASSESSMENT (2)
- written report to investigators and persons matching profile evaluated
- if new evidence / no suspects -> back to (2)
- 6. APPREHENSION
- if suspect apprehended, entire profiling generating process reviewed to check that at each stage the consluions were valid
- consider how process revised for future
- 1. PROFILING INPUTS
- General
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