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Applied Crime Analysis

A Social Science Approach to Understanding Crime, Criminals, and Victims

  • 1st Edition - June 12, 2014
  • Latest edition
  • Author: Wayne Petherick
  • Language: English

Most approaches to crime analysis focus on geographical crime mapping, which is helpful in identifying crime clusters and allocating police resources, but does not explain why a… Read more

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Description

Most approaches to crime analysis focus on geographical crime mapping, which is helpful in identifying crime clusters and allocating police resources, but does not explain why a particular crime took place. Applied Crime Analysis presents a model that brings statistical anchoring, behavioral psychopathology, and victimology from the social sciences together with physical and crime scene evidence to provide a complete picture of crime. This hands-on guide takes theoretical principles and demonstrates how they can be put into practice using real case examples. In addition to covering key topics such as staged crime scenes, false reports, and criminal motivations, the book’s includes a final chapter on report writing, showing readers how to use their findings to successfully advance to prosecution and succeed in court.

Key features

  • Presents a model that takes social science concepts, including statistical anchoring, behavioral psychopathology, and victimology and connects them with crime scene evidence to examine and analyze crime
  • Puts crime analysis theory into practice with real-world examples highlighting important concepts and best practice
  • Includes a report writing chapter to demonstrate how this approach can strengthen criminal cases and succeed in court
  • Instructor materials include a Test Bank, Powerpoint lecture slides, and Instructor's Guide for each chapter

Readership

Upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in criminal justice programs as well as practitioners and/or academic professionals in criminal justice field.

Table of contents

Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Foreword

1. An Introduction to Applied Crime Analysis
Key Terms
Introduction

1.1. Types of crime analysis

1.2. Applications
Conclusions

2. Logic and Reasoning in Crime Analysis
Key Terms
Introduction

2.1. Logic and reasoning

2.2. Cognitive tools

2.3. Cognitive errors

2.4. Inductive logic

2.5. Current research on abduction murder

2.6. Deductive logic

2.7. Structured professional judgment

2.8. When probability is the only possibility: analysis of competing hypotheses
Conclusion

3. Physical Evidence and the Crime Scene
Key Terms
Introduction

3.1. What is science?

3.2. Forensic roles

3.3. What is a crime scene?

3.4. Crime scene types

3.5. What is physical evidence?

3.6. Should the crime analyst visit the crime scene?

3.7. Processing the crime scene

3.8. Reporting results
Conclusion

4. Forensic Victimology
Key Terms
Introduction

4.1. Victimology defined

4.2. Victim precipitation

4.3. Risk factors for victimization

4.4. Types of victim risk

4.5. Victimology: a suggested approach
Conclusion

5. Detecting Staged Crime Scenes: An Empirically Derived “How-to”
Key Terms
Introduction

5.1. Staged crimes in the literature

5.2. Red flags for staged homicides

5.3. Determining the presence of staging

5.4. Ferguson checklist: an empirically derived “how-to”

5.5. Staged burglary/homicides

5.6. Staged car accidents
Conclusion

6. Case Linkage
Key Terms
Introduction

6.1. What is case linkage?

6.2. Theoretical underpinnings of linkage analyses

6.3. Nomothetic case linkage: the use of databases

6.4. Considerations in determining case linkage
Conclusion

7. False Reports
Key Terms
Introduction

7.1. The problem of false reports

7.2. Incidence and prevalence of false reports

7.3. False reports

7.4. False allegations

7.5. False confessions

7.6. Motivations for false reporting

7.7. Managing false reporters

7.8. Considerations in determining reports
Conclusion

8. Motivations
Key Terms
Introduction

8.1. Motivations

8.2. The Groth typologies

8.3. The Massachusetts Treatment Center typology

8.4. The Hazelwood adaptation of Groth and colleagues

8.5. Other typologies

8.6. Considerations in determining motive
Conclusion

9. Risk Assessment
Key Terms
Introduction

9.1. What is risk assessment?

9.2. Types of risk assessment

9.3. The problems with risk assessment

9.4. Communicating risk

9.5. Risk assessment is not yet an exact science

9.6. When harm is likely or imminent
Conclusion

10. Threat Assessment and Management
Key Terms
Introduction

10.1. First involvement

10.2. Sources of information

10.3. Information analysis

10.4. Intervention

10.5. Monitoring
Conclusion

11. Psychopathology and Criminal Behavior
Key Terms
Introduction

11.1. What is psychopathology?

11.2. What is forensic psychopathology?

11.3. The nature versus nurture fallacy: the interaction between programing, predisposition, and experience

11.4. Genetics

11.5. Criminal psychopathology: mental states and characteristic pathology associated with the perpetration of crime

11.6. Typical psychopathologies, mental states, and psychopathological characteristics associated with perpetrators of crime

11.7. Compulsive homicide

11.8. Sadistic aggression

11.9. Addiction and criminal behavior

11.10. Disordered thinking

11.11. Delusional subtypes with forensic association

11.12. Delusion as a feature of other forensic psychopathology

11.13. Psychotic disorders

11.14. Personality disorders
Conclusion
Chapter Summary

12. Report Writing, Style, and Components
Key Terms
Introduction

12.1. Basic components

12.2. Suggested report layout

12.3. Conclusions
Conclusion
Appendix A. Threat assessment and management process—organizational settings
Index

Review quotes

"This hands-on guide takes theoretical principles and demonstrates how they can be put into practice using real case examples. In addition to covering key topics such as staged crime scenes, false reports, and criminal motivations, the book includes a final chapter on report writing."—EvidenceMagazine.com, Sep-Oct 2014

Product details

  • Edition: 1
  • Latest edition
  • Published: June 18, 2014
  • Language: English

About the author

WP

Wayne Petherick

Wayne Petherick is Associate Professor of Criminology at Bond University in Australia. Wayne’s areas of interest include forensic criminology, forensic victimology, criminal motivations, criminal profiling, and applied crime analysis. He has worked on risk and threat cases, a mass homicide, stalking, rape, and a variety of civil suits involving premises liability and crime prevention. He has presented to audiences in Australia and abroad, and has published in a variety of areas including social science and legal works in the areas of criminal profiling, expert evidence, stalking, serial crimes, criminal motivations, and victimology. Wayne is co-editor of Forensic Criminology, and editor of Profiling and Serial Crime: Theoretical and Practical Issues, now in its third edition.
Affiliations and expertise
Associate Professor of Criminology, Faculty of Society and Design, Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

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