Investigative Decision-Making for Psychologists
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Investigative Decision-Making for Psychologists
Investigative psychologists are increasingly able to inform answers to a wide range of practical applications. Canter has proposed that these may be categorized under ten classes of operational question that police and other investigators as well as the courts face in the course of their activities.
1 Salience.
What aspects of a crime are the salient ones?
So much of apparent significance can happen in a crime that it is not necessarily obvious to the investigator what the features of the crime are to which attention should be paid. These features may help investigators to understand the crime and its context more fully and may fruitfully point to the type of individual who may have committed the offence.
2 Suspect elicitation.
What searches of police records or other sources of information should be carried out to help identify the offender?
This is a question about what the dominant features of offenders are likely to be. This can open up searches of particular areas or databases, inviting information from the public, or working with informants. All these processes can draw upon a fuller understanding of the crime and the sorts of people who commit such crimes.
3 Suspect prioritisation.
Which of the possible suspects are most likely to have committed the crime?
The personal characteristics and previous behavioural patterns of the offender, as inferred from the study of the crime, can help the police to distinguish the perpetrator of a given crime from other known offenders the police may be considering.
In operational terms, this becomes a question, for example, of which suspects should be drawn from police or other databases for the most detailed scrutiny. So, for example, indications that the Investigative Psychologist could give about the likely criminal history of an offender who has committed a certain type of crime in a certain way, may be helpful to police searching through their lists of possible suspects.
4 Offender location.
Where is the offender most likely to have a base?
Ideas about where an offender is likely to be living can shape an investigation and the deployment of police personnel and resources. Understanding the geographical patterning of an offender’s criminal activities and how this relates to his/her home base has huge potential significance in operational terms.
5 Linking crimes.
Which crimes are likely to have been committed by the same perpetrator(s)?
The linking of crimes to a common offender/s has many advantages for police investigations. Such linking requires the determination of what it is about any given offender that is sufficiently internally consistent, from one crime to the next, to suggest that a single person is responsible for the crimes.
If most burglars use forced entry, it is unlikely that will be able to link together two burglaries committed by the same person who also happens to use forced entry. Of course, if a burglar has a mode of operating that is as unique to him/her as a signature, then that can be used to link his/her crimes. It is rare, however, for any criminal to reveal such ‘signatures’ consistently.
It therefore follows that issues of salience in the offender’s actions are taken to a further level when linking is considered. The salience of the action in distinguishing one offender from another needs to be studied, as well as its salience in distinguishing one offence from another.
6 Prediction.
Where and when will the offender commit his/her next offence and what form might that take?
When the police are investigating a series of crimes, predicting where and when the next offence will occur becomes a key operational concern. The likely severity of the offence, for example, whether violence is likely to escalate, or whether a different form of offence is probable, is also of operational significance.
7 Investigative decision-making.
In what ways can the investigative process be improved?
The actual details of how investigations are organised and the processes of decision-making are open to psychological scrutiny and can be influenced by knowledge of the cognitive and social processes involved. This leads on to the consideration of the most effective decision support tools and the development of such tools.
8 Information retrieval.
How can the collection of information in an investigation be made more effective?
The interviewing of suspects, witnesses and victims, as well as the harnessing of information from other public and private sources can all benefit from an understanding of the cognitive and social processes involved in these activities, as well as the data management skills that are part of a psychologist’s training.
9 Evaluation of information.
How can the information that becomes available be assessed?
The most obvious area of psychological study here is in the detection of deception. However, other aspects of the validity and reliability of information obtained are open to systematic scrutiny and improvement, particularly by drawing on psychometric tools.
10 Preparing a case.
What sense can be made of the offence that will help to organise the legal case?
In court, the prosecution – and the defence – draw implicitly on lay models and ideas about human behaviour to make their case. Formal psychological theories can be used to structure legal cases, and this will on occasion improve the quality of arguments.
At the heart of these ten operational questions are what have become known as the “profiling equations“.
Psychology can contribute to these operational matters at two levels. Most significantly, investigative psychologists are able to provide substantive knowledge, based on empirical studies, and these studies can, increasingly, provide direct answers.
Secondly, psychology can provide a framework for understanding the processes that police must go through in attempting to find the answers. Conceptualizing these processes in familiar terms allows psychologists to suggest improvements.