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Inference Structures For Crime Analysis And Intelligence: The Example Of Burglary Using Forensic Science Data

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Abstract

There has been much work dedicated to crime analysis and intelligence in recent times. Independently, physical evidence has shown great potential for linking crimes and bringing solid informative data through the increased use of multiple databases. However, their informative potential is still often underestimated and has been poorly integrated into police information systems. We propose a framework that fully introduces this data into an intelligence based system. This framework is built on the study of inference structures extracted from investigators’ every day implicit reasoning processes. Five specific inferences are studied with the particular problem of serial burglary investigation across independent police and legal structures. On the basis of such an analytical approach, a computer prototype has been designed; it has shown great promise and has resulted in several operational successes.  1999 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The investigation of serial crimes is a complex problem that can be viewed from a crime analysis, or crime pattern analysis

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A Methodology for Evaluating Geographic Profiling Software

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1. Introduction

This report describes a methodology for evaluating geographic profiling software. Following a brief overview of geographic profiling (Section 1.1), Section 1.2 describes how the methodology was developed. The key component of the methodology was convening an expert panel that met in August 2004; a summary and full transcript of the panel’s discussions are in Section 2 and the Appendix, respectively. The panel focused on four geographic profiling software applications, which are described in Section 3. The actual evaluation methodology is outlined in Section 4.

1.1. Background on Geographic Profiling

Geographic profiling is a criminal investigative technique that attempts to provide information on the likely “base of operations” of offenders thought to be committing serial crimes. The base of operations could be the offender’s home, place of employment, a friend house, or some other frequented location. The predictions are based on the locations of these crimes, other geographic information about the case and the suspect, and certain assumptions

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Criminal Profiling From Crime Scene Analysis

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Abstract

Describes the developing technique of criminal personality profiling. Such profiling will not identify the offender, but indicates the kind of person most likely to have committed a crime by focusing on personality characteristics. A basic premise is that the way persons think directs their behavior. The profiling process moves from input through a decision models stage considering the type and style of the crime. After further assessment, a generated profile is applied to the investigation. The profile is reviewed when the suspect is apprehended. Criminal personality profiling has proven to be a useful tool in law enforcement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

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Serving Survivors of Homicide Victims During Cold Case Investigations:

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INTRODUCTION

Statement of the Problem

Advancements in DNA technology and other forensic investigative tools have enabled law enforcement agencies to reopen cases left dormant for years. Although the number of cold cases investigated by agencies on a nationwide basis each year is currently not tracked, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) does track the number of offenses cleared. In 2009, 66.6 percent of the 13,242 murder and non-negligent manslaughter crimes in the United States were cleared by arrest or exceptional means.1 While this is a significant clearance rate, it leaves many homicides unsolved each year. In response to the advances in forensic technology, many law enforcement agencies have established cold case units with the hope that reexamining evidence will help solve more crimes. As cases are reopened, investigators are contacting survivors of homicide victims. Although survivors may be grateful that their loved one’s murder has renewed attention, the reopening of a case can sometimes have traumatic effects. As discussed in Section 4.1, “Training for Investigators,” survivors

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Multiple Victim Public Shootings

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Abstract

Few events obtain the same instant worldwide news coverage as multiple victim public shootings. These crimes allow us to study the alternative methods used to kill a large number of people (e.g., shootings versus bombings), marginal deterrence and the severity of the crime, substitutability of penalties, private versus public methods of deterrence and incapacitation, and whether attacks produce “copycats.” The criminals who commit these crimes are also fairly unusual, recent evidence suggests that about half of these criminals have received a “formal diagnosis of mental illness, often schizophrenia.” Yet, economists have not studied multiple victim shootings. Using data that extends until 1999 and includes the recent public school shootings, our results are surprising and dramatic. While arrest or conviction rates and the death penalty reduce “normal” murder rates and these attacks lead to new calls from more gun control, our results find that the only policy factor to have a consistently significant influence on multiple victim public shootings is the passage of

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What Propels Sexual Homicide Offenders? Testing an Integrated Theory of Social Learning and Routine Activities Theories

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ABSTRACT

Sexual homicide is a rare occurrence. Little is known about the offending perspective of sexual homicide from a criminological standpoint. Recently, Chan, Heide, and Beauregard (2011) proposed an integrative theoretical framework using concepts and propositions of Social Learning Theory (differential association, definitions, differential reinforcement or punishment, and imitation) and Routine Activities Theory (a motivated offender, an attractive and suitable target, and the absence of a capable guardian or guardianship) to elucidate the sexual homicide offending dynamics. According to this integrative model, the individual-level view of the sexual murderers is explained by the social learning principles, while the offending process is complemented by the routine activities propositions from amicro-level to provide a better explained sexual homicide offending model. However, this model has yet to be tested empirically. In addition to testing the Chan et al.’s model, this study proposes and tests an alternative model by incorporating the construct of pre-crime precipitators to better explain the motivating factor of an

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Exploring the Difference Between Male and Female Intimate Partner

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This research examines the role of situational factors in differentiating between maleand female-perpetrated intimate partner homicide. Applying concepts from Luckenbill’s theory of homicide as a situated transaction, an intimate partner homicide is seen as an amorphous event where the role of offender and victim emerge during the transaction. When adopting this framework, it is possible to treat the sex of the offender as a dependent variable and examine situational factors that may differentiate between male and female intimate partner homicide offenders. The data used in this analysis come from the lethal sample of the Chicago Women’s Health Risk Study, 1995 to 1998. These data consist of records for 85 heterosexual intimate homicide incidents that occurred in Chicago in 1995 and 1996. Logistic regression analyses indicate that the presence of a prehomicide injury and whether the offender used a knife differentiate between male and female offenders. Implications for future research are discussed.

The differences between male and female criminal involvement are well documented...

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Forensic Interpretation Of Injuries | Wounds Found On The Human Body

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Abstract

Penetrating injuries of the body are most commonly the result of injury/wounds and are often associated with a range of potentially life threatening injuries. In every physical assault, no matter it led to death or not, the attacker had produced/left different types of marks in the victim's body that could be helpful to reconstruct the crime scene and guide to determine the cause of death. In the present study, we have demonstrated some examples of injuries/wounds found of the victim's body with illustrative photos. These provide a proper and useful data for the forensic crime scene investigators.

INTRODUCTION

An injury is define as any harm, whatever illegally caused to any person in body, mind, reputation or property as per Indian Panel Code (Sec. 44). In forensic science, the injuries/wounds are produced by physical violence, which break of the natural continuity of any of the tissues of the living body [1]. Different types of injuries are summarized in

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Why Are Union Members Murdered in Colombia?

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A careful analysis of available rulings by Colombian judges shows substantial inaccuracies in public documentation of cases, and undermines Colombian government claims that trade unionists in Colombia are not killed for trade union activity. The following information is based off of the court documents for 22 cases heard by the three special ILO judges in 2007. (While there were 29 distinct cases for 2007, viewing each victim or group of victims as a single case, the Colombian government did not provide the court documents in 7 cases.)

When Leonidas Gomez, leader of the bank workers’ union, was murdered in March 2008, Maria Isabel Nieto, Vice Minister of Justice, suggested during a televised interview that it may have simply been a “crime of passion,” rather than targeted political violence. Representatives of the Colombian government make such statements frequently, casting doubt on the legitimacy of claims that trade union violence in Colombia is targeted, not random. Editorialists have picked up the “random violence theory,” insinuating that thee

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Murder by Design: The Evolution of Homicide

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Homicide is a widely studied phenomenon using various units of analysis, research designs, statistical approaches, and diverse data sources. From the extant literature on this topic, numerous findings emerge that assist in our statistical understanding of homicidal behavior. In particular, one of the most frequent sources of information on homicides is drawn from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Uniform Crime Reporting Program, which collates and reports Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHRs) from more than 18,000 police agencies annually. As one of the most widely available sources of data, this information often forms the basis for a great deal of what is known about homicide. For example, the most recent Crime in the United States shows that the rate of homicide has declined in recent years to the current rate of 5.6 per 100,000 inhabitants (FBI, 2003). In addition, this publication depicts the demographic composition of homicides in the United States by reporting that homicide victims are...

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Why Homicide Clearance Rates Decrease: Evidence From The Caribbean

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Introduction

Homicide clearance rates are often used as a yardstick for measuring overall police performance. Investigations constitute only a small share of what the police do, but homicide clearance rates often serve as a proxy for police performance for two reasons. First, most people would agree that murder is the most serious type of crime, and therefore solving murder cases is among the most important of police functions. Bringing a murderer to justice quenches the public’s thirst for the police to do something about violent crime. Second, homicides are the most reliably reported crime. Measurement error in official police data on other crime types is often so severe that it is difficult to know whether increases or decreases represent true changes in crime or are simply an artefact of reporting or recording practices (Hoffman 1971, Nadel 1978, Poggio et al. 1985, Cordner 1989, Alpert and Moore 1993, Riedel and Jarvis 1998). Although homicide clearances are sometimes conceptually ambiguous,.

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Psychology of Homicide Unit IV

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Computed across a lifespan of 75 years, there is a 1 in 200 chance that an individual in the United States will be murdered. The frequency of homicide and this startlingly high statistic warrant more concerted efforts to research the psychological underpinnings motivating homicide. The history of the study of the psychology of homicide is replete with theoretical shifts—some of which have led to empirical dead ends and others to tremendous advances. Explaining the motivations of a murderer historically has been a difficult task for psychologists because of the wide array of individual, situational, and cultural variables influencing the development of homicidal behavior. Recent psychological research includes both theoretical and methodological advances that have allowed for new, unprecedented insights into the psychology of homicide.

Theoretical Perspectives on Homicide

Several theories have been developed over the brief history of psychology seeking explanations of the patterns of homicide. These theories have followed larger movements within psychology. Movements have proceeded from individualistic explanations

Additional Resource: Homicide Psychology

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Following Blood Trails: A Sar Perspective

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Blood Trails, DNA, and O. J.

Since 1985, with Alec Jeffrey's discovery of the uniqueness of portions of the DNA structure of certain genes, investigations involving blood have taken an entirely new turn. While the ultimate goal of the analysis of proteins and enzymes was to individualize blood, that's pretty much established with DNA technology. Within a year of the discovery, DNA typing was being put to the test in criminal cases. It not only cleared one man who had confessed to a crime, but also led to the conviction of the actual killer in the same crime. DNA can narrow down suspects in a hurry, but it's not foolproof. It can be challenged in court on the basis of sloppy evidence collection and the corruption of samples during testing. That was the tactic that O. J. Simpson's defense team used to win for him an acquittal in his double murder trial. Just how did they manage to accomplish this?

Additional Resource: Blood Trails, DNA, and O. J. (3182 downloads )

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Cracking the Cold Case: The Anatomy and Deconstruction of Unsolved Crimes

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Abstract

Popularized by the media and trendy television programs, the topic of “cold case investigation” has become ubiquitous. By examining unsolved cases and investigating detective processes, a compilation of information is gathered to analyze, reexamine and recreate crimes in an effort to solve them. This research aims to examine the procedures and anatomy of unsolved cases while reviewing the current cold case management tactics used by local and national law enforcement officials. Through academic literature, eight law enforcement staff interviews, governmental publications and the author’s documented first-hand investigative experience, this thesis also suggests recommendations for all cold case investigative personnel in their future case investigations. Though the media has worked for and against creating an accurate depiction of cold case investigation, using determined volunteers or decks of playing cards could offer unique techniques to investigators that now may have more tools to use than they realized.

Part I: Introduction and Definitions

For centuries, law enforcement agencies have used

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Examining Attributes of Homicides

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Homicide is a widely studied phenomenon using various units of anal-ysis, research designs, statistical approaches, and diverse datasources. From the extant literature on this topic, numerous findings emerge that assist in our statistical understanding of homicidal behavior. In particular, one of the most frequent sources of information on homicides is drawn from the Federal e u r I Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Uniform Crime Reporting Program, which collates and reports Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHRs) from more than 18,000 police agencies annually. As one of the most widely available sources of data, this information often forms the basis for a great deal of what is known about homicide. For example, the most recent Crime in the United States shows that the rate of homicide has declined in recent years to the current rate of 5.6 per 100,000 inhabitants (FBI, 2003). In addition, this publication depicts the demographic composition of homicides in the United States by

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Murder

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MURDER:

  • Most murder are between people who know each other 75-90%
  • Look for closest relatives, acquaintances first concentric circles
  • Means/Motive/Opportunity
  • Means: Does the suspect actually have the ability to have commit the crime…ex. .38
    -------Motive: Does the suspect have a reason to commit murder?
      ---------Opportunity: Did the client have time to commit the crime?
    ---------Alibi
  • Person who finds body as suspect
PROFILING THE SCENE:

  • What sorts of things can the scene tell you?
  • Disorganized vs. organized
  • How messy is the scene
  • How long did the perp remain at the scene
  • How purposeful were the actions of the perp
  • Was a weapon taken to, or used from on-scene
  • Does the scene match witness testimony cutting of phone lines inside the house robbers who go straight for hidden loot lack of valuables taken
  • Blood spray evidence
CONDITION OF THE BODY:

  • Failing to cover body indicates disrespect
  • Insertion of object into vagina or anus indicates desire to humiliate or rage may indicate perceived wrong covering of face indicates guilt
 

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