Forensic Psychology

Tends to be planned and the victim is specifically targeted, the body is often transported from the scene, the weapon is usually hidden and violent fantasies may be acyed out on the victim.Such offenders are generally high in intelligence, socially ans sexually competant, usually live with a partner, have a car in good working orderand follow their crimes in the media.

Example Ted Bundy

Definition

Numerical quantative data that is gathered by the goverment. This information is based on the total number of crimes reported to the police or when the police dicover a crime

Evaluation

Unreliable as it underestimates the true extent of crime

Crimes go unreported by the victims

Suggest that only 25% of crimes are reported. The other 75% become 'the dark figure of crime'

police prioritise certain types of crime

Record peoples experiences of crime over a specific period of time. The survey asks people to document the crimes they had experienced in the past year. A sample of 50,000 households are randomly selected each year. A smaller sample of 10-15 year olds are also selected. Each person is then interviewed using standardised questions.

More valid then stastics as victims are more likely to include details of crime that were not reported to the police.

More consistent then stastics when making comparisons.

Issues with samples 75% take part - less representative and biased

Based on the idea that the characteristics of an offender can be deduced from the characterisics of the offence and the particulars of a crime scene.

Tend to be unplanned crimes, random selection of victim, offeneder likely to engange very little with the victim and sexual acts are performed after death on the body. The crime scene is likely to contain many clues such as blood and semen from the offender, fingerprints and the weapon.

This is where offenders are questioned. Individuals volunteer the numberof crimes they have commited. They tend to target groups which are seen as more likely offenders such as, those with previous convictions.

Useful because they provide an insight to how many are responsible for certain offences.

Respoces maybe unreliable as offeners may underplay their unvolment in a crime 

Targeted nature of the survey means that representative of working class crimes are more likly to be over reported. While middle class crime such as freud, are likely to be unreported or not included at all

Eyesenck

Extraversion -

Sociable and crave excitment and change , and thus can become bored easily. They tend to carefree, optimistic and implusive

Neuroticism -

Tend to be anxious, worrying and moody. They are overly emotional and find it difficult to calm down once upset

Psychoticism

Lacking in empathy, cruel, a loner, aggresivemand troublesome

Originated in the USA as a work carried out the FBI in the 1970s.This was particulary influenced by the work carried out by the FBI's behavioural science unit who used from 36 in-depth interviews with 36 sexxually motivated serial killers. Offender profilers use this appraoch to match what is known about the crime and the offender to a pre-existing template that the FBI developed. Murderers or rapists are classified into 2 catergories; organised or disorganised

1. Profile inputs 

Data collected - description of the crime scene, background information about the victim and details of the crime itself. All information,even if it appears trivial, should be include.

2.Decision

The profiler starts to make decision about the data and organises it into meaningful patterns.

3. Crime assessment

Based on the data collected, the crime is classified as organised or disorganised.

Ted Bundy is one of the USA's most notorious serial killers. During the 1970s  Bundy is know to have ***** , tortured and brutally murdered over 30 women across seven US states. Hansome, charming and highly intelligent - traits he used to win the trust of his victims- Bundy attended the University of Washingtom and later, law school, where he excelled. While a student, Bundy fell in love with a young waelthy women from california. Devastated by the subsequent break-up, many of Bundy's victims resembled his college girlfriend, they were attractive with long, dark hair parted in the midlle. His killing usually followed a gruesome pattern. After escaping police custody twicw, Bundy was executed by electric chair in 1989

Aim - To test the reliability of organised/disorganised typologies

Procedure  - A content analysis of 100 cases of serial killers from the USA. The thrid crime commited by each serial killer was analysed using 'the crime classification manual'

Results - Twicw as many disorganised as organised crime-scenes were identified. In 70% of cases the body was concealed and in 75% of cases sexual sctivity occured. Further analysis failed to reveal any significant difference between organised and disorganised variables.

Conclusion - Carter concluded that instead of their being a distinction between two types of serial killers, all of the crimes had to have had an organised element to them as they hadn't been caught after three killings. It would be better to look at personality variables

Canter proposed that a criminal can be revealed through the location they choose. Geographical are more concerned with where the crime took place as oppose to who didit. The reason for this is that it would make sense for a criminal to commit a crime in a location near to them as it involves very little effort.

Geographical profiling analyses the location of a connected series of crime and considers where they were commited. The spatial relationship between different different crime scenes can be used to identify how the crime relates to the offenders place of residence.

Marauder

Commit their crimes claims close to where they live or feel secure. Usually disorganised

Commuters 

Commit their crimes away from where they usually live. Usually organised

Aim - To identify a behaviour pattern from similarities between offenders

Methodology - A content analysis was carried out on 66 sexual offences from various police forces commited by 27 offenders. The data was subjected to Canter's smallest space analysis.

Results - Five variables were found to be central to the 66 cases: -

• Vaginal Intercourse
• No reaction to the victim
• Impersonal Language
• Surprise Attack
• Victim's clothing disturbed

This suggest a pattern where the attack is impersonal and sudden and the victims response is irrlevant the offender

Conclusion - This has become known as the Five Factor Theory. These five factors have now been shown to contribute to all sexual offences, but all in different patterns for different individuals. An analysis of these factors can enable police to decide if an offence has been commited by the same individual

4. Criminal profile

A profile is now constructed of the offender which inclused hypotheses about their likely background habits and beliefs of the offender. The description is used to work out a strategy for the investigation to help catch the offender.

5. Crime assessment

A written report is given to the investigatory agency and the persons matching the profile are evaluated. If new evidence is generated and no suspect is identified then the process goes back to step 2

6. Apprehension

If a suspect is apprehended, the entire profile generating process is reviewed to check that each each stage the conclusions mage were legitimate and consider how the process maybe revised for future cases

Canter (1990) is the UK's foremost profiling expert

The appraoch looks for consistencies in offenders' behaviour during the crime. No intitial assumptions are made about the offender and the approach relies heavily on computer databases. It can be the little details that are often overlooked that can be crucial to the success case.

There are two examples of the bottom-up apprach these include: 

Investigative Psychology

Geographical Profiling

Interpersonal Coherence

The behaviour of the offender at the crime will be comparable to what they're like in everyday life

Forensic Awareness

The ides that certain behaviours may reveal an awareness of particular police techiques and past experiences.

Smallest Space Analysis 

This is a statical techinque developed by Canter. The data obtained about many crimes crime scenes and offender characterstics are correlated so that most common connections can be identified.

1. Instrumental opportunstic - using murder to obtain something or accomplish a goal

2. Instrumental cognative - A particular concern about being detected and therefore more planned

3. Expressive Implusive - uncontrolled, in the heat of strong emotions, may feel provoked by the victim