In-depth summary notes with everything you need to know about Forensics for AQA Psychology including Lombroso, the top down and bottom up approach, Eysenck's criminal personality, and more!
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Forensic Psychology
The top-down approach
● Offender profiling is a tool used to help investigators to accurately predict likely
offenders.
● The American approach is where offenders are assigned to one of two pre-existing
categories based on witness accounts and evidence from the crime scene.
● Created by the FBI based on an interview with 36 sexually motivated murderers e.g
Ted Bundy and Charles Manson.
● Organised offenders are likely to show evidence of planning, socially and sexually
competent with a high IQ.
● Unorganised offenders show little evidence of planning, socially and sexually
incompetent with a low IQ.
● Constructing an FBI profile:
1. Data assimilation 2. Crime scene classification
3. Crime reconstruction 4. Profile generation.
STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
- Support for a distinct category of - Some studies suggest that
offender. Canter et al analysed 100 organised and disorganised types
US murderers. Analysis revealed are not mutually exclusive. Godwin
that there is a subset of features of argues it’s difficult to class one or
many serial killings which matched the other e.g leaves evidence but
the FBI’s typology for organised high intelligence. Organised-
offenders. Shows that it has some disorganised typology may be more
validity. of a continuum.
- High external validity as real - Cannot be applied to all crimes. The
interviews using real murderers sample was poor - FBI agents did
were used. Means that we can not select a random or even a large
accurately generalise the findings to sample of different kinds of
real life crime. offenders (all sexually motivated).
No standard set of questions in the
interview so all were varied. Suggest
that top-down profiling does not
have a scientific basis.
, The bottom-up approach
● Profiles work up from evidence collected from the crime scene to develop
hypotheses.
● Investigative psychology -patterns of behaviour forming a statistical database.
● Interpersonal coherence - an offender's behaviour at a crime scene reflects their
everyday behaviour.
● Forensic awareness - individuals who have been the subject of police interrogation
before ‘cover their tracks’
● Geographical profiling - crime mapping based on psychological theories of offender’s
behaviour in relation to their home base.
● Canter’s circle theory - Marauders operate close to home, commuters operate further
afield.
STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
- Evidence supports its use. Canter - The database only consists of
and Heritage conducted an analysis historical crimes that have been
of 66 sexual assault cases. Several solved. If they have been solved, it
behaviours were identified as means they were relatively
common in different samples of straightforward to link together in the
behaviour e.g impersonal language/ first place. Suggests that
Supports investigative psychology investigative psychology may tell us
and that people are consistent in little about crimes that have few links
their behaviour. and therefore remain unsolved.
- Support for geographical profiling. - Geographical profiling may not be
Lundrigan and Canter collated sufficient on its own. The success of
information from 120 murder cases geographical profiling may be reliant
involving serial killers in the US. on the quality of data that the police
Found that each body disposal site provide. ~75% of crime is
created a centre of gravity - ‘circular unreported so we have to question
effect’ around the home base. the utility of an approach that relies
Evidence was more noticeable for on the accuracy of geographical
marauders. Geographical profiling data. Other factors are also
can be used to identify an offender. important in creating a profile e.g
timing of offence and
age/experience of offender
(Ainsworth). Geographical profiling
alone is limited.
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