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Summary Criminology 310 Exam Notes (Section B, Unit 5)
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PSYCHOCRIMINOLOGY.KRM 310: PART B.
STUDY UNIT 5.
CHAPTER 10: MULTIPLE MURDER, SCHOOL AND WORKPLACE
VIOLENCE.
What does investigative psychology entail?
The popular series Criminal Minds includes actors portraying behavioural scientists who
work within the FBI’s Behavioural Science Unit (BSU). Profiling is not restricted to the
serious crimes that are the subject of this chapter. Furthermore, it is generally directed at
unsolved crimes, such as serial killings, robberies or burglaries, rather than mass murders.
Psychological profiles of known offenders may be undertaken in an effort to understand what
led someone to commit these crimes as well as anticipate further similar events. Remember,
predicting multiple murders is almost impossible.
In the professional and academic world, the word “profiling” is often avoided. There are
many reasons for this:
- First, because the activity is unregulated in the US, persons with minimum degrees or
experience can call themselves profilers. At times, some of their “predictions” have
been extremely inaccurate, though credible profilers help us to understand an event
after it occurred or while it is unfolding.
- Second, many profilers tend to rely on “hunches” rather than on scientific data. While
hunches based on clinical experience are understandable, hunches without data to
back them up are problematic.
- Third, some profilers in the past have written self-serving personal accounts of their
experiences that minimize the imperfect nature of their art.
- And finally, depictions of profilers in novels or entertainment media too often suggest
they are infallible and can solve most crimes.
For these reasons, to bring more respectability to the profiling enterprise, some professionals
prefer to call themselves “behavioural analysts” or “investigative psychologists” rather than
profilers.
Discuss the three fundamental questions that are crucial in
criminal investigations.
Investigative Psychology, a term coined by David Canter refers to the application of
psychological research and principles to the investigation of criminal behaviour. Investigative
psychology tries to answer three fundamental questions that are crucial in criminal
investigations:
, 1. What are the important behavioural features of the crime that may help identify and
successfully prosecute the perpetrator?
2. What inferences can be made about the characteristics of the offender that may help
identify him or her?
3. Are there any other crimes that are likely to have been committed by the same
person?
These questions are central to investigative psychology.
In this chapter, because the term “profiling” remains in widespread use, we will retain it in
our discussion of the various forms of profiling as well as the research on its effectiveness.
However, as in other published work, we subdivide profiling into five distinct types. The
investigation of crime may involve more than one of these forms.
Define the concept “profiling”.
Profiling can be divided into five somewhat overlapping categories: psychological profiling,
suspect-based profiling, geographical profiling, crime scene profiling and equivocal death
analysis. The last is the least likely to be relevant to multiple murders.
Each of these profiling methods- and the investigators who employ these methods – rely on
different ways to analyse the person, the crime scene, or the incident. Some of the profiling
categories rely on either the clinical or actuarial approach.
The clinical approach is case focused and tries to infer characteristics of an offender from
the analysis of evidence gathered from a specific crime or series of crimes. The method
concentrates on the description, understanding, and identification of a single offender based
on the material gathered on an individual case. In situations where an offender has not been
identified (such as in burglaries, rapes, or some killings), the clinical method hopes to predict
if and when the offender will strike again. It is based on the premise that every case is unique,
and often emphasizes discovering the motivation for the crime as a basic understanding of the
offender. The clinical approach relies heavily on experience and training, and is often
supplemented by intuition, subjectivity and sometimes “gut feelings”.
By comparison, the actuarial approach concentrates on a data base gathered from groups of
offenders who have committed similar crimes or engaged in similar incidents. The profiling
tactic is based on how groups of offenders who have committed similar crimes have acted in
the past. The accumulated data from these groups of behavioural patterns are called the base
rates. Base rate is defined as “the unconditional, naturally occurring rate of a phenomenon in
a population”. If, for example, 65 out of 100 serial killers move the body from the crime
scene, the base rate would be 65. The base rate provides an estimation of how many serial
killers move the bodies from the crime scene, a helpful indicator for the profiler.
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