(19.1) What two theories are accepted by those using predictive models or profiling? Explain them.
a) Explain the problem with these theories
b) Does BEA succumb to the same issues? Why or why not?
Behavioral Consistency - the same criminal will behave in relatively the same way across their offenses
Homology Assumption - different criminals who commit similar acts will have similar traits or characteristics
*Generalizations; those characteristics are offender’s overall traits and disposition
BEA does not make same assumptions
Does not tell who a person is, might be, or want to be
Does not assume crime related behavior reflects an offender’s core or cardinal traits
(19.2) Define and explain the importance of personal identification.
Refers to establishing the precise identity of individuals, typically witnesses, victims, and offenders
Distinguish evidence and connect it to case
(19.3) What are the three problem characteristics that Turvey describes? What does he suggest we do with them?
Age & Sex (based off assumptions and stereotypes of what the investigator believes people of those demographics act like)
Intelligence - Turvey argues profilers are really looking for offender skill level (skill level is not indicative of intelligence)
(19.4) Name and explain the four offender characteristics that have been proven to be investigatively relevant?
Evidence of criminal skill - competency
Knowledge of victim - an offender stranger increases suspect pool
Knowledge of crime scene - security schedule, location of valuables , etc
Knowledge of methods and materials
(19.5) What are the two problems with using criminal profiling in court?
Ignorance about the nature of criminal profiling and crime reconstructions
Zeal that profilers apply to their opinions (making them seem like fact)
(20.1) Explain the difference between genocide and mass murder.
Mass Murder - murder of multiple victims during a single event, at one or more associated locations
Genocide - deliberate and organized killing of groups of people for ideological purposes (subtype of mass murder)
(20.2) Define mass murder.
Mass Murder - murder of multiple victims during a single event, at one or more associated locations
(20.3) Name and debunk the four myths about mass murder.
- This is only a problem in America
- Mass murders happen all over the world (genocide) - Most mass murders are unemployed, lonely, psychotic gunmen
- Most are employed, married/in a relationship, and know what they are doing - Mass murders only happen in one type of place
- They can happen anywhere people gather (concerts) - There is a profile for mass murders
- They are diverse in their individual traits, methods, and motives; they come from all over and don’t want the same things
(20.4) What was the demographics of mass murderers according to Fox & Levin?
94.4% are male
43.3% are between 20-29 years old
62.9% are white
39.4% had a family relationship of some kind with the victim, 38.2 others
(20.5) What are the five types of mass killers? Define.
Power-oriented - thirst for power and control; have a passion for symbols of power including assault weapons
Revenge-oriented - motivated by revenge, either against a specific individual, particular category or group of individuals, or society at large; seeks to get even
Loyalty-oriented - have a warped sense of love and loyalty—desire to save their loved ones—father or husband takes the lives of wife and children to protect them or take away their pain and suffering
Profit-oriented - some serial and mass murders are committed for profit: specifically they are designed to eliminate victims and witnesses to crime
Terror-oriented - terrorist acts in which the goal is to send a message
(21.1) Define serial crime.
Any series of two or more related crimes
(21.2) True or false: serial crime refers to two or more related crimes of the same type
False
It is not the type of crime that defines the existence of a series, but the inference that the same offender is committing them
(21.3) Define cooling off period/interval
Psychological
Interval where the offender psychologically disconnects, separates, or compartmentalizes themselves from the behaviors and motives that led to or culminated in their homicidal behavior and then reintegrates back into normal life
*Can be immediate or take hours or days
Is not the entire time between offenses—only the time it takes to psychologically disconnect
(21.4) What four preconditions must occur prior to any sex crime?
- Motivated offender, which requires a historical context of related psychodynamics
- Offender must have strategy for overcoming their own internal inhibitions, can be contextual or cultural
- Offender must overcome any external restraints that prevent access to victim
- Offender must be able to overcome victim’s resistance, choosing victims incapable of resisting or planning and strategy
(21.5) Be able to match the Baker Typologies to their definition.
Sex & Lovemaking - rape behavior represents a confused attempt to experiment sexually and find intimacy
Sex & Shoplifting - victims are devalued and taken (stolen); objectified
Uniting - group or gang-related behavior; rape committed out of the need to prove something to the group
Dividing - involves the perception that women are the property of other men, and rape is used to establish power over them (the other men)
Power - rape used to assert power over a particular victim
Anger - attacks all parts of the victim’s body, forces them to engage in repeated nonsexual degrading acts, and uses much more violence than necessary to force them into submission
Sadism - Baker argues that sadism is a product of anger becoming eroticized aggression over time
(21.6) What are Keppel’s four solvability factors?
- Quality of police interviews with eyewitnesses
- Circumstances which led to the initial stop of the murder
- Circumstances which established probable cause to search and seize the physical evidence from the person and/or property of the murderer; solvability factors in each case
- Quality of the investigations at the crime scene(s)
- Quality of scientific analysis of physical evidence seized from murderer and/or property and its comparison to physical evidence from the victims and homicide scenes
(21.7) Describe the balance of information that should be provided to the media when a law enforcement body needs help from the community?
An investigator needs to give enough information to the community so they can help the investigation, but do not want to give everything they know
- Need to keep offender from fully knowing what the investigation looks like and changing their MO to throw investigators off
- Investiagtors also need to be wary of copycats and those that would give false confessions based off of the given information
(22.1) Name the three current issues with terrorism research.
- There is no universal definition for terrorism among researchers
- Many of the articles published on terrorism are thought pieces, with only 20% providing any new information
- Many terrorism experts have not actually spoken to a terrorist and are not revealing who or what their sources are
(22.2) Define the moral and divine mandates.
Moral Mandates - opinions or positions people develop based on their morals of what is right and wrong; have strong attitudes filled with moral conviction that can drive and motivate them to act
Divine Mandate - have religious ideology and convictions that follow the will of some divine entity or authority
(22.3) Define torture
a) Why doesn’t torture work?
Any form of intentional damage caused, and the violation of human rights of individuals, in order to obtain information or induce confessions
Information obtained through torture is inherently unreliable because the victim will do or say anything to survive (may give false information)
(24.1) Define evidence according to Black.
“Testimony, writing, material objects, or other things presented to the senses that are offered to prove the existence or non-existence of a fact” (Black, 1990)
(24.2) Can ideographic profiling be relevant? Under what circumstances?
Ideographic profiling is relevant only when the scientific method is used and scientific protocols are followed
(24.3) What is the Daubert standard?
Provides trial judges with a systematic framework to assess the reliability and relevance of expert witness testimony
Criteria
- Testing
- Peer review
- Error rates
- General acceptance
