Forensic psychology

Problems defining crime

The oxford dictionary defines crime as an act ounishable by law, as being forbidden by statute or injurious to the public welfare.

Laws change overtime and this is known as historical variation, they also change dependant upon cultures. 

Measuring crime

Official statistics- gathered by government. Gathered since 1805, shows crime that has been reported to, or has been discovered by the police. 

- Criticised as unreliable in that they underestimate the true extent of crime. 

- Many crimes go unreported by victims or unrecorded by police. 

Victim surveys-Victim surveys ask people to report crimes which they have experienced. Includes crime reported to police and those which have not. 

-Relies on respondents being truthfull

+ Extra details of crimes which were not reported to the police

Offender surveys- Collect data from those committed crimes. Around 5,000 PPTS were studies over a longitudinalk study, during the gour years over 95% of respondents remained within the study. 

+Provides an insight into how many peoples are responsible for certain offences

- Responses may be unreliable, offenders may want to conceal some of their crimes. 

Offender profiling

Top down approach- 

1. Profiling inputs- Descripition of crime scene, background of victim and crime itself.

2. Decision process models- Organise data into patterns : murder type, time and location

3. Crime Assessment- Crime is classified as organised or disorganised. 

4. Criminal profile- Profile is constructed including hypothesis about their background, habits and other facts.

5- Crime assessment- Written report given to investigating agency and people who match the profile as identified.

6- Apprehension- If a suspect is apprehended then the process is reviewed to check that at each stage the conclusions are legitimate.

EVALUATION: 

Only applies to partiuclar crimes: best suited to crime scenes that reveal important information about the suspect.                                                                                                    …