Forensic Psychology

• People are not born criminals, but learn to be criminals.
• Freud had a theory about criminality.
• Offender profiling is the process of understanding the psychology behind offenders.
• Offender profiling can be used to identify the characteristics of an offender based on a careful analysis of the offense they commit.
• Offender profiling is effective when searching for a serial offender.
• Offender profiling is not as common as you may think.
• There are two different ways of offender profiling: top down and bottom up.
• Top down offender profiling, also known as criminal investigative analysis, was developed by the FBI in America and uses pre-existing categories of offenders called organized or disorganized.
• The profiler uses the crime scene evidence to match the offender to one of those categories based on their own professional experience and effectively their intuition.
• Bottom-up offender profiling, also known as investigative psychology, uses statistical analysis on the data collected at the crime scene.
• This approach uses large data sets collected from other similar crimes and from that we can make assumptions such as how far the offender traveled to commit their crime.
• Top-down theories suggest perception starts with the concepts that are pre-existing in the mind and we then compare this with sensory data.
• Bottom-up models suggest that the brain's perception starts with the sensory data.
• Cantor demonstrated that 87% of a sample of 45 British serial assaulters fitted the marauding definition, providing evidence for the idea that criminals choose to offend around their home base.
• The Barnum effect is a technique often used in horoscopes and personality tests, where general and vague statements are accepted as true and insightful.
• Geographic profiling is an aspect of investigative psychology used to focus resources by narrowing down search areas based on the assumption that the location of the crime isn't a random choice.
• Forensic techniques can lead to the effective hiding of evidence, suggesting that the individual has been arrested for previous crimes and forensic evidence was used against them.
• Criminals often use what they know about their environment and their crimes to radiate out.
• Offender profiling is often used in combination with other forensic techniques, making it difficult to identify exactly what factor led to a case being solved.
• The circle hypothesis is the idea that if you draw a circle with the two furthest offenses on the circumference line, then the offender's home base was likely to be within the circle.
• Snook found that 94% of Canadian officers agreed that profiling helped solve cases, but the results of a study by Allison suggest that profiling may not be as effective as it appears.
• Distance decay is the assumption that the further you get from the home base, the fewer crimes will be.
• The least effort principle suggests that if the criminal has a choice between two equally attractive locations, they're going to choose the one closest to their base.
• Disorganized offenders are likely to have a lower than average level of intelligence, commit the crime in a disorganized manner, and are unlikely to be following the media coverage of the crime they committed.
• Organized offenders are likely to have average or
• Organized offenders are likely to leave evidence at the crime scene, the body is often left where the offence happened, and all of this reflects a higher than average level of intelligence.
• Crimes are often committed in the heat of the moment with no planning, using whatever objects were around as a weapon.
• Organized offenders are likely to be following the media coverage of the crime they committed, and the victim was likely restrained.
• Disorganized offenders are likely to leave little evidence at the crime scene, the body is often left where the offence happened, and all of this reflects a lower than average level of intelligence.
• Offenders can have average or higher than average intelligence and follow the report of the crime in the media with a disorganized offender.
• The body is often left where the offence happened.
• Organized offenders are likely to be following the media coverage of the crime they committed.
• Disorganized offenders are likely to be restrained, have a lower than average level of intelligence, and are unlikely to be following the media coverage of the crime they committed.
• There is often a lot of evidence left at the crime scene and the victim may not have been restrained.
• Organized offenders are likely to have average or higher than average intelligence, follow the report of the crime in the media, and commit the crime in a planned manner using whatever objects were around as a weapon.