Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling最新文献

The homeless population remains understudied, and their victimisation is unreported, especially homeless victims of homicide. With the number of people faced with homelessness increasing, the heightened rates of victimisation for violent crimes throughout this population becomes even more concerning. A review of the literature revealed an absence of meaningful research beyond basic descriptive statistics of rates of homeless homicide in the UK. The current study explores the behavioural variation and risk factors associated with the victims and perpetrators of 19 cases of homeless homicide in the UK. A content analysis was first conducted to derive 22 case variables. Smallest Space Analysis was then employed to analyse the cases according to the variables selected. The themes produced in the SSA output were comparable to that of Canter's Victim Role Model: Victim as Object, Victim as Person and Victim as Vehicle. The current study lays a foundation for developing an understanding of the variation in behaviour across cases of homeless homicide and may serve to inform preventative measures.

Skilled investigative interviewing is critical to ensuring that credible witness accounts are gathered in criminal investigations. The current study aimed to determine whether instructions to avoid suggestive questions and pre-interview knowledge influence both the quality of an interviewer's questioning strategy and the interviewer's memory for the witness' account after a 1-week delay in a laboratory study using lay student interviewers and witnesses. Results indicated that access to case details prior to the interview did not significantly influence the type or quality of questions asked within the interview itself but significantly influenced interviewers' memories for their interview 1 week later. Those who were blind to case information at the time of the interview had more accurate memories of their witness interviews than those who were correctly or incorrectly pre-informed. Instructions to avoid suggestive questions served to reduce suggestive questions, regardless of pre-interview knowledge. Taken together, these findings suggest that pre-interview preparation may influence investigative outcomes beyond the interview context and traditional measures of witness accuracy.

The present research compared geographic profiling (GP) methods, including spatial distribution strategies (SDS) and probability distance strategies (PDS), to account for the effect of the number of crimes on the accuracy of GP. Comparing the accuracy of GP methods among three burglar groups (a total of 333 offenders) with different sizes of crimes (1–5, 6–15 and 16 or more) committed before arrest showed that the accuracy decreased in a group with a larger size of crime. Comparing the accuracy of GP methods among the number of crimes (3–10) using 150 offenders who committed 10 or more crimes showed a slight improvement in the accuracy with the increasing number of crimes. In addition, the PDS (vs. SDS) showed a higher accuracy with the increasing number of crimes. The findings encourage practitioners to use the PDS and research implications are discussed.

Few earlier studies have investigated the effects of highly stressful, realistic, violent, and threatening scenarios on eyewitness identification accuracy in an ecologically valid setting. The majority of studies have relied on laboratory-based simulated (videos/images) experiments. The present study investigated line-up accuracy approximately 1 week after a hostage simulation event. We administered biased line-up instructions to 50% of participants to investigate how this impacted choosing behaviour and accuracy. Based on 1030 line-up decisions (N = 122), we found that average accuracy was 38% in target present (TP) and 54% in target absent (TA) line-ups and that biased line-up instructions decreased overall accuracy (vs. unbiased). The hit rate for TP line-ups with biased instructions was 0.43 (unbiased instructions: 0.33), while the false alarm rate for TA line-ups with biased instructions was 0.60 (unbiased instructions: 0.32). We found that high confidence was associated with correct identifications and that shorter response times were indicative of correct rejections. Our findings demonstrate, in a more realistic scenario than the majority of eyewitness identification studies, the effect that biased line-up instructions lead to increased choosing and decreased accuracy.

Femicide, the lethal form of gender-based violence against women, is a global health crisis that transcends class and ethnicity. To date, there is no working model for differentiating male femicide offenders within Northern Ireland (NI); therefore, the current study aimed to do this, focusing on the timeframe of the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. The research has drawn on newspaper articles reporting on the 11 NI femicides perpetrated over a period of 20 months. These crimes were content analysed for the presence or absence of 16 pre-identified offender variables. The data was analysed using a multi-dimensional scaling procedure called Smallest Space Analysis (SSA). Two distinct themes emerged: Chronic Criminal Abuser and Mentally Disturbed. The qualitative data obtained on offender characteristics aligned with the preliminary model for differentiation. Forensic implications pertinent to risk assessment and management are considered. It is argued that NI adopt an active violence against women and girls (VAWG) strategy to effectively tackle the issue of Femicide. Future research may consider a retrospective study of NI Femicide offenders to firmly establish the types of offenders committing femicide for targeted resource allocation.

Dysfunctional personality and psychopathological characteristics are increasingly studied in offenders separately, but only a few studies have analysed their relationship in this specific population. In this research, we focus on the so-called Dark Triad personality, consisting of the Machiavellian, the narcissistic and the psychopathic personalities. The main objective of this study was to examine the association between Dark Triad personality and psychopathology and also to know the role of these mental health variables in recidivism. Participants were 63 offenders (44 men and 19 women) from two different penitentiary institutions. Sociodemographic data as well as clinical and personality characteristics were recorded. Psychopathology was assessed with the third version of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory and dark personality with the Short Dark Triad. Results of descriptive statistical analyses revealed a high prevalence of psychopathology in convicted participants and reincarcerated offenders. Correlational analyses showed a strong relation between the Dark Triad personality and psychopathology, being the psychopathic personality the one with the highest association. Finally, we found that the psychopathological variables contributing most to the discrimination of reincarcerated participants were substance and alcohol abuse disorders and in relation to dysfunctional personality were psychopathy and narcissism, the latter in negative direction. These data highlight the relevance of a necessity for research exploring long-term patterns of re-incarceration for both men and women, including mental health disorders and personality models. The importance of taking into account the relationship between variables in preventive and treatment interventions inside and outside penitentiary institutions is discussed.

This study investigated predictive factors of prisoners' denial of guilt for their alleged crimes during interrogation. We administered a self-reported questionnaire to new male prisoners who were convicted of theft and/or fraud and had denied the crime during interrogation. First, we analysed the reasons for their denial and identified factors of Anxiety and Refusal. Next, we investigated which interrogator's behaviour the prisoners believed had influenced their denial and identified three factors: Persuasion, Non-Presentation of Evidence, and Confrontation. Finally, we examined whether the prisoners' denial at the conclusion of interrogation would be predicted by these factors, specifically in terms of the prisoners' reasons for denial, the interrogator's behaviour and the characteristics of the prisoners and their crimes. The results revealed that marital status, and Anxiety and Non-Presentation of Evidence were predictive of denial at the conclusion of interrogation. Interrogators need to consider these factors when interviewing denying suspects.

Filicide is defined as the killing of children from birth to age 18 by a natural or step-parent. The legal definition of filicide in Korea does not impose such age limits. Although families in contemporary Korea are nuclear in structure, they were multigenerational prior to the industrialisation that occurred during the second half of the twentieth century. While psychiatric and evolutionary theories have been predominantly used in the filicide literature, prior works have neglected to examine how culture shapes violence against one’s offspring. This paper explores the offence, offender, and victim characteristics in South Korean filicides (1948–1962) through a content analysis of a major newspaper (Chosun Ilbo). Results indicate that filicides occur in one-on-one contexts, primarily carried out by biological parents against their offspring while adoptive children appeared as victims due to the genealogical customs practiced in Korean society. Results indicate that more than 12% of filicide victims are adults. The implications of our findings are discussed.

In addition to being an unusual form of crime, sexual homicide (SH) sometimes includes unusual crime scene behaviours, such as carving on the victim, evisceration (i.e., removal of internal organs), skinning the victim, cannibalism and vampirism. The current study investigates these unusual crime scene behaviours to better understand their meaning as well as to explore whether such behaviours are associated with a specific crime-commission process. Using a sample of 762 SH cases, the study uses a combination of chi-square and stepwise forward logistic regression analyses to identify the differences between cases with and without unusual acts. Findings reveal that SH cases with unusual acts present a specific crime-commission process. This crime-commission process is characterised by a greater level of sadism—as demonstrated by the presence of mutilation and foreign object insertion—as well as a greater level of organisation from the selection of a contact location where the risk of being seen or heard was low. These findings provide a better understanding of these behaviours and could help investigators facing such cases.