Criminology Test 2

They must be comfortable with human sexuality in order to conduct a thorough and informed victimology, and to ably examine related behaviors in their proper context, without bias.

-The desire for privacy

-Embarrassment

-Social, cultural, religious, and legal taboos against certain sexual activities

-Lack of reflection or insight into the nature and extent of one’s own sexuality

-Any eroticized activity that differs from accepted or typical sexual norms.

-Not universal

-any sexual behavior that is uncommon,antisocial, or a violation of an interpersonal covenant of some kind (e.g., monogamy or marriage).

-Motives include:

-Sexual attention seeking

-Desire to shock

- Satisfying masochistic desires for self-humiliation

-Demonstrating ownership and submission

-It is deviant in that it plays against social conventions relating to sexual privacy and discretion.

-Fetishists tend to be highly specific in their associations between objects and sexual arousal

-Fetishism is not a crime in itself -fetishists are often identified publicly by association with other illegal sexual activity related to the fetishism or satisfying their fetish, such as theft, trespassing, and sexual assault.

- refers to the psychological, emotional, and even physical manipulation of one intimate partner by the other to achieve domination and control. It exploits the covenant of an intimate relationship for explicit personal sexual gain.

Sexual coercion includes:

-Withholding benefits

-Threatening relationship defection

-Manipulation of partners by reminding them of their ‘obligation’ to have sex

-Sadomasochism relationships are inherently deviant because they are generally rare, and because they eroticize pain and humiliation while directly encouraging antisocial behavior – despite the consensual context.)

-the scientific study of victims for the purposes of addressing investigative and forensic issues.

-Forensic victimology is an idiographic form of knowledge building

-A key feature is an applied understanding of the scientific method and an emphasis on theory falsification

A comprehensive understanding of victims and their circumstances will allow for an accurate interpretation of the facts of a case, which will allow for an accurate interpretation of the nature of their harm or loss, and subsequently tell us about the offender.

-A compete picture of the victim history is required

-Each victim is different, each case is different, and therefore less victim history is not better

- The propensity to assume that everything found in a crime scene or in relation to a crime must somehow be related is a logical fallacy

- Referred to as post hoc, ergo propter hoc

- Collecting history from the complainant, as well as collateral sources, is necessary to ensure that the most complete and accurate information is relied upon

-Assist in understanding elements of the crime

-Assist in developing a timeline

-Define the suspect pool

-Provide investigative suggestions

-Assist with crime reconstruction

-Assist with contextualizing allegations of victimization

-Assist with the development of offender modus operandi

-Assist with the development of offender signature

-Assist with establishing the offender’s exposure level

-Assist with case linkage

-Assist with public safety response

-Reduce victim deification and vilification

-Help establish the nature of victim exposure to harm or loss

-the amount of contact or vulnerability to harmful elements experienced by the victim.

-This differs from victim risk

– the possibility of suffering harm or loss.

- Victim exposure can be categorized in terms of lifestyle exposure and situational/incident exposure.

concerned with studying the frequency of potentially harmful elements experienced by the victim and resulting from the victim’s usual environment and personal traits, as well as past choices.

1) By creating a perceived conflict with an offender

2) By increasing the victim’s presence around offenders or those predisposed toward criminality

3) By enhancing an offender’s perception of victim vulnerability

-Afflictions: Drug addiction, alcoholism

-Personal Traits: Aggressiveness, impulsivity, self-destructive behavior, passivity, low self-esteem, aberrant sexual behavior

Those who are exposed to the possibility of suffering harm or loss less often than not (1-3 days a week)

Those who are rarely exposed to the possibility of suffering harm or loss(Less than once a week)

refers to the amount of actual exposure or vulnerability experienced by the victim to harm, resulting from the environment and personal traits at the time of victimization.

-Time/Locationof occurrence

-Drug and alcohol use

-Proximity to criminal activity

-Number of potential victims

-Availability of weapons

Those who are exposed to harm or loss immediately prior to victimization

Those who are vulnerable to harm or loss immediately prior to victimization

Those who are exposed to little contactor vulnerability to harm or loss prior to victimization

The purpose of a timeline is to familiarize the forensic victimologist with the last known activities of the victim and subsequently determine, if possible,how a given victim got to a place and time where an offender was able to access him or her.

-It involves an integrated assessment of the forensic evidence, forensic victimology, and crime scene characteristics.

-Offender MO and signature behaviors

-Evidence of crime scene staging

-Crime scene motivation

-Offender characteristics

1)Crime scene protocols

2)Investigative protocols

3)Medicolegal investigative protocols

4)Forensic victimology

-Refers to any examination, evaluation, or appraisal of the evidence record and related to the findings in a given case.

-This includes:

1.) Physical evidence

2.) Statementand testimonial evidence

3.) Documentary evidence

4.) Behavioral evidence

refers to anything that can be interpreted in more than one way or any interpretation that is questionable.

refers to a review of the entire body of physical evidence in a given case, questioning all related assumptions and conclusions.

a phenomenon that occurs when investigators, detectives, crime scene personnel, or others somehow involved with an investigation come up with theories uninformed by the facts.

- basic items of forensic information that should be reviewed and considered before a competent criminal profile can be rendered.

1.) Crime scene video

2.) Crime scene photos

3.) Investigators’ reports

4.) Crime scene sketches

5.) Crime scene evidence logs and evidence submission forms

6.) Results of forensic analysis

7.) Medical examiner and coroner reports

8.) Autopsy photos

9.) Sexual assault protocol

10.) Written and taped statements from witnesses and victims

- provides information regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the physical evidence that may or may not establish the evidence relationship to a criminal investigation.

1.) Corpus delicti

2.) Modus operandi

3.) Signature behavior

4.) Linking the suspect to the victim

5.) Linking a person to a crime

6.) Disproving or supporting a witness’ testimony

7.) Identification of a suspect

8.) Providing investigative leads

an investigative document that reviews the initial physical evidence of behavior, forensic victimology, and crime scene characteristics for a particular case, or a series of related cases, in order to provide immediate investigative direction.

-A TA should not include firm conclusions or opinions- It is meant to be an investigative compass, or “to do” list, compiled in any phase of a case- It provides initial observations,concerns, and priorities

- It should not be presented as, or used for the same purpose as, a full criminal profile

-The decision to construct a TA should be made only after a basic cost-analysis of doing so had been made.

1) Investigative direction: a TA directs investigators to gather the type of information that will assist in creating the full profile, and that will provide additional grist for leads, theories, and opinions apart from the profiling effort

2)Public safety: In cases where danger is imminent, it may be in the best interest of the affected community to draw up some insights based on initial and consequently incomplete information.

-The“body of the crime”

-Refers to the essential facts that show a crime has taken place

An offenders habits, techniques, and peculiarities of behavior

Committed to satisfy psychological and emotional needs

Characteristics developed from an examination of a single case, or a series of cases linked by a single offender.

-An average, or a prediction

-it does not describe a real offender walking around and breathing in the real world.

methodology suggests that examination of crime-related behavioral evidence over time, along with subsequent offender physical, personal, and psychological traits, can reveal individual offender trait correlations, patterns, and propensities.

Criminal profiling refers to the inference of distinctive offender traits from physical and/or behavioral evidence.

BEA is generally consistent with Allport’s dynamic Trait Theory of Personality. This theory divides personality traits and dispositions into 3 general categories:

1.) Cardinal Traits

2.) Central Traits

3.) Secondary Traits

The small number of dominant, pervasive and stable traits that define an individual to others and guide the majority of their decisions.

-Example: extremely religious

Core characteristics and behavioral tendencies that accurately describe an individual, while not consistently dominating their decision-making process and subsequent behavior

-Example: intelligent

Transitory preferences and moods, which are often situational and therefore less enduring

-Example: angry

any physical, documentary, or testimonial evidence that helps to establish whether, when, or how an action has taken place.

Any form of physical evidence may also be behavioral evidence under the right circumstances

-Example:footprints and footwear impressions can indicate presence; standing, walking, or running; and direction

Involves the examination and interpretation of physical evidence, forensic victimology,and crime scene characteristics.

- BEA is ideographic – concerned with studying the aspects of individual cases and offenders

- BEA is deductive – inferences and conclusions are based on critical thinking, the scientific method, and deductive logic.

1)Forensic analysis – refers to the examination, testing, and interpretation of any and all available physical evidence

2)Forensic victimology –the scientific study of the victim for the purposes of addressing investigative and forensic questions

3)Crime scene analysis –the analytical process of interpreting the specific features of a crime andrelated crime scenes

2.) Trial Phase

-Involves behavioral evidence analysis of the patterns of unknown perpetrators of known crimes

-Involves behavioral evidence analysis of known crimes for which there is a suspect of defendant.

-Takes place in preparation for hearings, trials, and post-conviction proceedings.

Uniqueness,

separation,

behavioral dynamics,

behavioral motivation,

multi-determination,

motivational dynamic,

behavioral variance,

unintended consequences,

memory corruption,

reliability

-Fundamental rules that set the limits of evidentiary interpretation.

-Practice standards define a minimum threshold of competency and provide independent reviewers with a basis for checking work that purports to be competent