Deck 10: Offender Profiling and Crime Linkage

Question 1

According to Woodhams, Hollin, and Bull (2007), crime linkage is a form of behavioural analysis used to identify crimes committed by the same offender, through their behavioural similarity.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

What are the two principles underlying crime linkage?

Answer 2

1. Offender consistency hypothesis
2. Behavioural distinctiveness/discrimination

Question 3

Name a potential advantage of successful crime linkage.

A) The efficient deployment of limited police resources
B) The ability to pool witness descriptions and physical evidence
C) An increase in victim credibility
D) All of the above

Answer 3

All of the above

Question 4

The geographical proximity of crime locations is thought to be a good indicator of whether the crimes are committed by the same offender

Question 5

The clinical-practitioner approach and the statistical approach are two of the main schools of thought in offender profiling literature. What is the third?

Question 6

Which approach to offender profiling is most associated with the FBI and is based on extensive experience working for the police and/or other law enforcement agencies?

A) The criminal investigative approach
B) The clinical-practitioner approach
C) The statistical approach

Question 7

Professor David Canter pioneered the statistical approach to offender profiling. Along with colleagues he identified three modes of interpersonal interaction that were said to characterise the crime scene behaviour of rapists, paedophiles and murderers. In which mode does the offender try to build rapport with their victim?

A) The object mode
B) The person mode
C) The vehicle mode

Question 8

There are three principles that underpin the process of offender profiling. Two of these are shared with crime linkage (behavioural consistency and distinctiveness). What is the third?

Question 9

The homology assumption of offender profiling suggest that if two people are similar in terms of their personal characteristics their offence behaviour will be very different.

Question 10

Which option below best describes the findings of Alison, Smith, and Morgan (2003), who examined the scientific content of 21 real offender profiles that were submitted during the course of police investigations?

A) More than 50% of the claims made were unfalsifiable
B) More than 20% of the claims made were vague or open to interpretation
C) More than 80% of the claims made were not supported by evidence
D) All of the above

Question 11

Theory and research from the personality literature has contributed to the development of research on crime linkage.