Forensics

• Top-down approach
• Disorganised offenders
• Crime refers to any behaviour that is unlawful and therefore justified to be punished by the state. Such acts are harmful to an individual, group, or society as a whole
• Organised offenders refer to crimes committed by an offender who planned the crime and may engage in violent fantasies with the victim. The perpetrator is high in intelligence and socially competent
• Problems with defining crime

  • Definitions of crime differ across cultures (eg. Homosexuality)
  • Definitions of crime change over time
• Organised offenders
• Define ‘crime’
• Bottom-up approach is a data-driven approach, where statistical techniques are used to produce predictions about the likely characteristics of an offender
• A biological explanation for criminal behaviour is the atavistic form w
• Bottom-up approach
• Top-down approach refers to the analysis of previous crimes creating a profile of a likely offender. Profilers use this knowledge to narrow the field of possible suspects. This approach relies on the intuition and beliefs of the profiler
• Disorganised offenders refer to crime scenes that are left with many clues such as fingerprints. There is little evidence of engagement with the victim, and signs indicate that the offender has low intelligence and competence
• Ways of measuring crime

  • Official statistics
  • Victim Surveys
  • Offender Surveys
• Biological explanation for criminal behaviour
• Epigenetics is the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself; it refers to the material in each cell that acts as a switch to either activate or deactivate a gene
• Antisocial personality disorder (ASD) is associated with neural differences in the brains of criminals and non-criminals, lack of empathy, and reduction of grey matter in the prefrontal cortex
• Methods of dealing with offending behaviour

  • Custodial Sentencing
  • Behaviour Modification
  • Anger Management
  • Restorative Justice
• A biological explanation for criminal behaviour is the atavistic form which suggests that certain individuals are born with a criminal personality due to earlier primate forms
• Mirror neurons implicated in crime help with understanding behaviour; if the mirror system is functioning incorrectly, individuals may experience a lack of empathy, making it more likely that they will commit a crime
• Cesare Lombroso devised the atavistic form
• Issues with restorative justice include reliance on the offender showing remorse, which may not always happen
• Geographical profiling is a form of bottom-up profiling based on the pattern shown by the location of a series of crimes
• Extraversion


  Refers to 'outgoing' individuals who enjoy risk and danger as their nervous systems are underaroused
• Issues with restorative justice

  • Reliant on the offender showing remorse which may not always happen
  • May not be cost-effective as highly trained mediators are required
  • May not be suitable for all types of offense, e.g., violence against women
  • Seen as being too lenient on the offender
• Neuroticism

  Refers to people with a negative outlook who are easily upset. Their lack of stability is due to an overactive response to threat (They have an overactive fight or flight response)
• Kohlberg’s moral dilemma study

  In 1973, Kohlberg used a moral dilemma technique and found that criminal offenders were at a lower level of moral reasoning- they were at the preconventional level. The preconventional level is characterized by a need to avoid punishment and get rewards, and childlike reasoning. Typically, non-criminals tend to progress to the conventional level and beyond
• Hostile attitude bias


  When a person automatically attributes bad intentions to another person
• Cognitive distortions

  • Biased thinking where perception does not align with reality