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Criminal profiling
No full textOne of the more widely recognized and practiced subspecialities within forensic criminology is that of criminal profiling. It has a long history, as detailed in Turvey (2008a). It also boasts a small library of distinct literature, with different methods and subspecialities all its own. Criminal profiling is a practice that has seen increasing popular and media attention over the past several decades. It has been depicted in popular fiction such as films like Silence of the Lambs (1991) and television programs like Criminal Minds (2005– present). It has also been applied in a number of high profile cases, including the “Washington Snipers” (see Turvey and McGrath, 2005, for an extended discussion of profiling and the media in the D.C. Sniper case). As a result, students of criminology commonly express an interest in studying criminal profiling with a view to becoming profilers themselves
Forensic victimology
No full textForensic victimology is intended to serve the justice system by educating it. This area of study is aimed at helping to provide for informed investigations, to require scientific examinations of victim evidence to be presented in court, and to result in more informed legal outcomes. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a discussion regarding the nature and scope of forensic victimology, its investigative implications, and its impact on court proceedings. We will begin with a brief section outlining the more Traditional Victimology..
Collision or collusion ? Homicides staged as car accidents
No full textA staged crime scene involves deliberate alteration of evidence by the offender to simulate events that did not occur for the purpose of misleading authorities. Staging has received little attention in the medical, legal and criminology literature, and discussions of staged car accidents are almost non-existent. Bar a few case studies, no literature exists. The study examined 16 homicides staged as car accidents. The descriptive analysis examined what common staging behaviours and victim, offender and offence characteristics. Findings indicate staged car accidents present differently than true accidents. They often involve single vehicle, slow speed, downhill scenes, with middle aged, female victims. Physical damage to vehicles is usually minimal, except for fire damage. Common offender behaviours include: transporting the body to a vehicle and arranging both; mutilation of the body; arson; and clean up. The results suggest these efforts are often unsophisticated and potentially identifiable to investigators and physicians
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Staged crime scenes : literature and types
No full textMany things can hamper an investigation. For example, the crime may be a truly random\ud
occurrence without links between the victim and the offender, evidence may not be acknowledged\ud
or properly collected, and the crime type itself may influence solvability. In other cases\ud
still, offenders actively seek to hamper the police investigation in an effort to avoid being\ud
caught and going to prison. In fact, the literature on homicide notes that it is not uncommon\ud
in many cases of this type for the offender to engage in precautionary acts (Turvey, 2007)..
Investigative relevance
No full textCriminal profiling is one tool available to investigative agencies that may assist in narrowing\ud
suspect pools, linking crimes, providing relevant leads and new investigative strategies, and\ud
keeping the overall investigation on track (Turvey, 2008). However, like a flashlight in a darkened\ud
room, profiling may not always provide valuable assistance if it shines in the wrong direction\ud
or fails to shine at all. In a perfect world, profiles are intended to provide investigators with\ud
a set of refined characteristics of the offender for a crime or a crime series that will assist their\ud
efforts. In contrast, it could be argued that profiles are not intended to provide information that\ud
may be irrelevant, unclear, confusing, or distracting to these efforts. Any information provided\ud
within the profile that does not assist in narrowing suspect pools or providing new avenues of\ud
inquiry is left open to misinterpretation and is therefore potentially damaging (Turvey, 2008).\ud
The degree to which information provided in a profile can actually be utilized by investigators\ud
to meet their goals is known as investigative relevance..
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