Intro to Forensic Crime - Part 1

Intro to Forensic Crime - Part 1

1. Definition

   • Concerned with psychological aspect of legal processes in courts. Refer to investigative criminal psychology ; psych theory to crime investigations, psych problems associated with criminal behaviour and treatments of criminal (BPS, 2012)

2. Source of crime data

   • Official Agency
     • First publication : France , 1827
       • England in 1857
     • Figures based on numbers of crime reported and recorded by the police and court records
       • Used by government to inform crime prevention and provide evidence of success of polictu initatives
         • If used with crime survey can form contrast and acuurate picture , complementary
         • (Dis- many victims don't report crimes, lack vaidity) )
           • DV, SA, petty crime; rape and assault in UK , 17 % victims (ONS, 2018)
         • Police find may serve interests of police , bias for certain trends ie. front door damage = attempted burglary, lack validity (Patrick, 2014), trends influenced by changes
           • Police Crime statistic downgraded form nation statistic in 2014
             • Over concerns of integrity and veracity
           • Constructed as a result of complex social processes, social construct
             • Understand where they come from and factors influence data to no over interpret , need care
               • (Dis- Only notify of the ones that are prosecuted as opposed to no charge, bias from government sentencing policies i.e. clampdown of burglary lead to higher number of burglars in prison, not reflective)
                 • Fewer crimes are recorded by police (4,699,000) than 12 million estimated on survey
                 • Goevernment don't spend money collecting and collating crime statistics to inform the public
               • Statistics go out o date rapidly and intepretation has to be imposed
                 • I.e. Black person 6x risk of being a victim and 8x to be perpetrator (Fox and Zawitz, 2014)
                   • People rush to believe it indicates racial differences in inheritance of criminal tendencies, others reflect huge social inenqualites experience by black communities
           • Police forces April 2023, NDQIS used new methodlogy to help identify whether a offense was abuse related in 28 forces, cause increase in offencces as be DA related
         • (Ad- Crime statistics are rarely simply wrong , they are not always in agreement but provide different perspective if not slightly flawed )
         • (Ad- Allow researchers to examine changes in crime rates over time)
         • The more consistent any biases in reporting crime and recording crime, more useful police statistic can be in trends in criminal activity
         • CSA higher level in 2020s than 1960s
           • > awareness and vigilance or unreported abuse
             • Legal and other changes may result in crimes being classified differently today, i.e. male rape is now more likely to result in > of crime statistics
             • (Dis - Underrepresent crime' masking the real figure, dark crime figure
         • Some crimes such as burglary have > report rates because insurance companies require burglaries to be report before payout
   • CS AND OA violent crime differ; crimes such as stalking and harrasment included in OA not survey as they dont publish this (ONS, 2024)

3. Source of crime data

   • Crime survey for England & Wales ; British Crime Survey (Victims)
     • National Household survey ; f2f, sample addresses ; 50, 000 per year , 50 minutes, response rate = 74%
       • Records people experience of crime over a specific period
     • Randomly picked address
       • Many may not want to be interviewed; can't replace them
         • (Dis - rely on recall), telescoping occurs, time wise)
     • Crimes that maybe ignored by police as too trivial will be noted
     • Some serious and sensitive crimes are generally omitted from this survey
       • Crimes not included as dealing with victims ; drug offences shoplifting and homicide
       • As anonymised , feel safer disclosing a unreported crime
     • Regarded better ways of assessing levels
       • (Ad- Avoid inherent bias than police reports)
         • Unaffected by changes in level of reporting to police or practices
       • Reduce reliance on OA statistics , as compared to check validity indicate unreliable as a result of more or less offending
       • (Ad- Large sample, representative)
     • (Dis- Exclude crime where there is no victim i.e. vandalism and drug offences
     • Time between occurence and reporting short, indicate trends