Forensics keyword

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  • Created by: IB122
  • Created on: 08-02-17 19:39
Crime
An act committed in violation of the law where the consequence of conviction by a court is punishment especially where the punishment is a serious one such as imprisonment.
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Official statistics
Figures based on the numbers of crimes that are reported and recorded by the police which are often used by the government to inform crime prevention strategies.
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Victim (victimisation) survey
A questionnaire that asks a sample of people which crimes have been committed against them over a fixed period of time and whether or not they have reported it to the police.
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Offender survey
A self-report measure that requires people to record the number and types of crime they have committed over a specified period.
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Offender profiling
Also known as criminal profiling is a behavioural and analytical tool intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown criminals.
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The top-down approach
Profilers start with a pre-established typology and work down in order to assign offenders to one of two categories based on witness accounts and evidence from the crime scene.
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Organised offender
An offender who shows evidence of planning, targets the victim and tends to be socially and sexually competent with higher than average intelligence.
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Disorganised offender
An offender who shows little evidence of planning, leaves clues and tends to be socially and sexually incompetent with lower than average intelligence.
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The bottom-up approach
Profilers work up from evidence collected from the crime scene to develop hypotheses about the likely characteristics, motivations and social background of the offender.
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Investigative psychology
A form of bottom-up profiling that matches details from the crime scene with statistical analysis of typical offender behaviour patterns based on psychological theories.
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Geographical profiling
A form of bottom-up profiling based on the principle of spatial consistency that an offender's operational base and possible future offences are revealed by the geographical location of their previous crimes.
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Atavistic form
A biological approach to offending where offenders are genetic throwbacks or a primitive subspecies, ill-suited to conforming to the rules of modern society. Such individuals are distinguishable by particular facial cranial features.
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Genetics
Genes consist of DNA which produces instructions for general physical features e.g. eye colour and specific physical features e.g. levels of neurotransmitter in the brain. Genes impact physiological features e.g. mental disorders and are inherited.
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Neural explanation
Any explanation of behaviour in terms of dysfunctions of the brain and nervous system. This includes activity of brain structures, e.g. hypothalumus, and neurotransmitters, e.g. serotonin and dopamine.
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The criminal personality
An individual who scores highly on measures of extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism . They also cannot easily be conditioned, are cold and unfeeling as well as likely to engage in offending behaviour.
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Levels of moral reasoning
A process by which an individual draws upon their own value system to determine if an action is right or wrong. Kohlberg attempted to objectify the process by identifying different levels of reasoning based on people's answers to moral dilemmas.
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Cognitive distortions
Faultm biased and irrational ways of thinking that mean we perceive ourselves, other people and the world inaccurately, usually in a negative way.
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Hostile attribution bias
The tendency to judge ambiguous situations or the actions of others as aggresisive and threatening when in reality, they are not.
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Minimalisation (minimisation)
A type of deception that involves downplaying the significance of an event or emotion. A common strategy when dealing with feelings of guilt.
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Differential association theory
An explanation for offending which proposes that through interaction with others, indiiduals learnt the values, attitudes, techniques and motives for criminal behaviour.
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Psychodynamic explanations
A group of theories influenced by the work of Freud that share the belief that unconcious conflicts, rooted in early childhood and determined by interactions with parents, drive future, in this case criminal, behaviour.
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Custodial sentencing
A judicial sentence determined by a court where the offender is punished by serving time in prison or in another closed therapeutic educational institute such as a psychiatric hospital.
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Recidivism
Reoffending, a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behaviour, in context of crime, a convicted criminal who reoffends, usually repeatedly.
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Behavioural modification
An application of the behaviourist approach to the management of offenders in penal institutions based on principles of operant conditioning. It aims to replace undesirable behaviours with more desirable ones through selective reinforcement.
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Anger management
Involves identifying triggering signs of anger and using techniques to deal with the situation in a positive way. It doesn't aim to prevent anger, instead manage it. Programmes are offered in prisons to encourage self-awareness and rehabilitation.
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Restorative justice
A system for dealing with criminal behaviour which focuses on the rehabiliation of offenders through reconciliation with victims. This enables the offender to see the impact of their crime and and serves to empower victims by giving them a "voice".
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

Figures based on the numbers of crimes that are reported and recorded by the police which are often used by the government to inform crime prevention strategies.

Back

Official statistics

Card 3

Front

A questionnaire that asks a sample of people which crimes have been committed against them over a fixed period of time and whether or not they have reported it to the police.

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

A self-report measure that requires people to record the number and types of crime they have committed over a specified period.

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

Also known as criminal profiling is a behavioural and analytical tool intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown criminals.

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
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