AQA Psychology Forensic Psychology Exam Questions With Complete Solution

AQA Psychology Forensic Psychology Exam Questions With Complete Solution What is offender profiling? A behavioural and analytical tool that is intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown criminals How is offender profiling used? - Narrows the field of enquiry and list of likely suspects - professional profilers will be called in to work alongside police - There will be careful scrutiny of crime scene and analysing the evidence to generate characteristics of the criminal What are the principles of top-down profiling ? Behavioural evidence- things that tell us how an offender went about committing a crime Criminal consistency - The idea that a persons behaviour at a crime scene is consistent with their behaviour in other contexts Describe the top - down approach - Starts with the big picture and then fills in the details - start with a pre-established typology and work down in order to assign offenders to a category based on evidence Where did the Top-Down approach originate? - from the work of the USA FBI in the 1970s - FBI gathered data from in depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated killers eg Ted Bundy - Murderers and rapists are classified as either organised or disorganised What is an organised offender ? - Show evidence of having planned the crime in advance - Victim is often targeted and fits a 'type' - Above average IQ and socially / sexually competent - Usually married with kids What is a disorganised offender? - Shows little evidence of planning - Impulsive act - Little control exerted from the offender - Be in unskilled work or out of work - lower than average IQ - tend to live alone and close to the crime scene What are the four main stages in the construction of an FBI profile ? - Data assimilation (profiler reviews the evidence ) - Crime scene classification ( organised vs disorganised ) - Crime reconstruction ( hypotheses in terms of sequence of events and behaviour of victim ) - Profile generation ( hypothesis related to the likely offender ) What are the limitations of the top - down profiling approach - Limited Application (best suited to crime scenees that reveal important details about the suspect eg rape murder but cant tell about common offences eg burglary as the crimes reveal very little about offenders) - Outdated models of personality What is the bottom - up approach to offender profiling ? - Starts with small details and creates the big picture - British model does not begin with fixed typologies ( builds an individual profile) -Profile is data - driven and emerges as the investigator scrutinises details of offence -Generates a picture of offenders characteristics routines and backgrounds through analysis of evidence -Uses past data on similar crimes to build offender picture What is investigative psychology? A form of bottom-up profiling that uses psychological theory as it's basis alongside statistical techniques Developed by Canter Psychological theory - Interpersonal coherence -Time and place -Criminal Characteristics -Criminal career -Forensic awareness Statistical techniques -Statistical analysis of details from the crime scene compared to database of similar crimes What are the 5 assumptions of investigative psychology. - Interpersonal Coherence (Consistency between the way offenders interact with victims - Time and place (Time and location may show something about the offender's place of residence/employment) - Criminal characteristics (Placing criminals into categories to help police) -Criminal Career (How far the criminal is into their experience and how this pattern of crime might progress) -Forensic Awareness (Offenders who show awareness of forensic investigation eg clean up a crime scene) What is an example of a statistical technique ? Smallest - Space analysis Involves looking at correlations between crime scene details and offender characteristics from past database to reveal if crime follows existing patterns What is geographical profiling? - A form of bottom up profiling based on location -Locations of crime scenes are plotted and used to infer likely home or operating base ( crime mapping) -Creates a 3D map using spatial data related to time distance and movement to and from crime scene (Jeopardy surface) -Helps investigators predict next target of crime -Can be used with psychological theory to create modus operandi for killer - Gives understanding of criminal movement and criminals 'centre of gravity' Describe Canter's circle theory - Canter and Larkin 1993 -Criminals have a spatial mindset -Centre of gravity is basis of theory as pattern of offending forms a circle around offender's homebase - Proposed two models of offenders - the MARAUDER (Operates in close proximity to home base) - the COMMUTER (Travelled a distance from their usual residence to a familiar area to leave no connection between offense locations and residence) -Offers insight into nature of offense ( whether planned or opportunistic)