3rd Year Undergraduate Essay
Investigative Psychology (IP) is a relatively new area in psychology, that aims to question and improve all aspects of criminal investigation for all involved- including the management, investigation and prosecution of crime (Canter and Youngs, 2005.) Therefore, an investigative psychologist comes into contact with a wide range of people- victims, witnesses, suspects, police officers, and various legal professionals. IP also looks at the psychological principles that support criminal investigations, such as problem solving, evaluating eyewitness testimony, and suspect prioritisation, alongside exploring the psychological significance of how offenders operate (Canter, 2018.) Therefore, the potential impact IP can have on criminal investigations is huge, both to specific investigations and to managing crime as a whole.
IP was founded by David Canter after his involvement with a criminal investigation in London, and was named IP sometime in the early 1990’s (Canter, 2018.) Canter originally studied Architectural Psychology, which is concerned with how people interact with the world around them, and then designing that world. By 1996 however, Canter was beginning to use his understanding of how individuals interact with their environment to try and help criminal investigations, particularly in sexual assault cases (Canter, 1996.) The ‘Railway Rapist’ case for example, led to the development of geographical offender profiling (Canter, 2007). This case was pivotal in the creation of IP and instigated further investigation into the field. Canter has contributed massively to criminal investigations since then- offering over 220 profiles to active investigations and given evidence in court (Canter, 2018.) Several other researchers are now involved with IP, most notably; Youngs, who has worked with Canter on several studies (Canter and Youngs, 2005; 2008a, 2008b), and Ioannou and Hammond (2015), who have furthered investigation into the detection of deception at the International Research Centre for Investigative Psychology in Huddersfield. IP has become a distinguished field in psychology, and even has a specific IP module being offered at Undergraduate level at the University of Huddersfield.
Geographical offender profiling (GOP), as mentioned previously, is possibly one of the biggest contributions IP has made to policing and criminal investigations, as it has helped dramatically with suspect identification and prioritisation of search areas. GOP is a system where offences are marked on a map, and zones are marked around the offences. Where these zones overlap is where the highest possibility of the offender living is, and the probability lessens as the zone widens (Canter, 2007.) This helps to narrow down police searches, and in theory helps with suspect prioritisation and minimalizing search costs. This notion has been applied in everyday policing through the use of Dragnet, a computer programme created by Canter (1995, 2018.) GOP has been refined over the years, with the inclusion of a decay function and a buffer zone now included making Dragnet a very useful tool in criminal investigations (Canter and Hammond, 2006; Snook, Taylor, and Bennell, 2004).
However, GOP and subsequently Dragnet does have several issues. Firstly, it has been argued that simple police training can be just as effective as the costly and time-consuming training it takes to use Dragnet (Snook, Taylor, and Bennell, 2004.) Nonetheless, GOP and the underlying theory of criminal behaviour behind it: which states that you can estimate where an offender lives through an analysis of the geographical location of their crimes (Kind, 1999; Canter, 1994; Canter, 2004; Rossmo, 1995) would still be at the heart of this ‘basic training’ and so has still contributed enormously to criminal investigations. Furthermore, Dragnet relies fundamentally on UK data around spatial behaviour which may not work in other countries- as seen in New Zealand (Hammond, 2014) with sexual offenders. Although, with further study of spatial behaviour of offenders in New Zealand Dragnet (or some other form of computerised GOP program) could still be of use depending on offending patterns (Hammond, 2014; Canter and Youngs, 2008a.)
IP has undoubtedly helped to inform and educate criminal investigations on suspect identification and prioritisation of search areas through the application of GOP. However, offender profiling is not the only way IP has helped with criminal investigations. IP has also led to an increased understanding of the decision-making involved in criminal investigations (Canter and Youngs, 2005) and questioned the offender characteristics that are inferred in these investigations. In addition to this, decision-making tools have been developed through the implementation of IP. For example, Canter’s (1995) profiling ‘equations’ have helped to give a deeper understanding of issues that can arise through the investigative process and solutions to them. This could be anything from struggling to visualise aspects of a case being assisted by schematic diagrams of information (Canter and Youngs, 2005) to questioning assumptions about offender behaviour. Profiling equations (Canter, 1995) fundamentally suggest to get from ‘A’ (the crime) to ‘C’ (potential offenders), evidence of inferences must travel along ‘B’ (Canter and Youngs, 2005.) Understanding that inferences link criminal behaviour to potential suspects has helped to establish an empirical framework for drawing inferences about offenders’ characteristics from criminal actions and behaviour (Canter, 2011), rather than relying on stereotypes. Questioning inferences commonly made by police is therefore a good example of how IP can help improve decision making in criminal investigations.
IP also has applied value in information retrieval (Canter and Youngs, 2005; Canter, 2018)- specifically interviewing witnesses. For example, Gibert and Mojtahedi (2018) recently studied brain injured eyewitnesses in their cognitive abilities and recall when presented with a target-absent line-up, compared to neurotypical participants. Gibert and Mojtahedi (2018) concluded that the common stereotypes surrounding the abilities of brain damaged patients were unfounded, and therefore that witnesses with a brain injury can provide reliable evidence when given the right environment. This is an example of how research into IP can contribute to police investigations through helping with informational retrieval from witnesses- in this example, to not dismiss a witness’s credibility immediately due to brain damage (Gibert and Mojtahedi, 2018). This also contributes to breaking down stigmatised beliefs about who can provide accurate witness testimony.
There are several examples of Investigative Psychology contributing to real cases- such as the previously mentioned ‘Railway Rapist’ case of Duffy and Mulchahy, and in a series of ransom phone calls in 1988 by Simon Wadland. John Duffy and David Mulchay operated in London between 1985-1986, murdering 3 victims and raping many more women at train stations. Canter (1995) was called in to provide psychological advice and given that he didn’t have the same prejudices and preconceptions as the police, used his own approach, and researched studies on criminal behaviour to offer advice to investigators. His profile helped to catch the two offenders (Canter, 1995) and led him to seize the opportunity to transform his new approach into a new area in psychology, as previously mentioned. GOP also contributed to the investigation, as it highlighted that the two offenders were likely to live near Kilburn due to the location of their crimes. Sure enough, both offenders lived in Kilburn and so GOP (and Dragnet) was a useful tool for the investigation. In the case of Simon Wadland, he telephoned a total of 270 women after reading newspaper details of family members and claimed he had kidnapped them. He demanded a ransom and managed to convince 12 people to follow his demands (Canter, 2007). GOP was applied using the recipients’ location and estimated a 2-3 mile radius around Sulgrave. When Wadland was identified as a suspect, he lived in a village 3 miles from Sulgrave (Canter, 2007) and his voice was identified by the victims. This was a very interesting application of GOP and Dragnet, as the crime was virtual, rather than physical but yet IP was still able to contribute to the investigation. This emphasises that IP and GOP in particular can contribute to suspect identification and narrow down search areas in a variety of criminal investigations.
IP has also helped in many more routine criminal cases which are still of great value. IP has been applied to a variety of cases; for example, arson, false rape allegations, insurance fraud-related investigations and jury assessment (Canter, 2018; Canter, 2007). There are also many other areas IP could be applied to in the future, such as psychological autopsies (Solomon, 2017.) Solomon (2017) proposes that IP professionals could work with forensic medical professionals in research and in clinical settings to extend the scope of IP, and to maximise the value of expert testimony in court, and potentially maximise the impact of a psychological autopsy. Yet again this highlights the contributions IP makes to police investigations, even while in the judicial systems.
Before GOP the most used form of offender profiling was the FBI approach, which was based around the work of Ressler, Burgess, and Douglas (1986) on serial killers. The FBI approach heavily focuses on behavioural classification of offences, ‘signature’ offences and whether the killer was ‘organised’ or ‘disorganised’ (Ressler et al., 1986.) However, it soon became apparent that the FBI approach was too simplistic- with professional profilers, detectives, psychologists, and college students having the same level of accuracy in their contributions when following the approach (Pinizzotto and Finkel, 1990.) Further studies (Canter, Alison, Alison, and Wentink, 2004) reported no distinct division in roles between supposed ‘organised’ and ‘disorganised’ types, which contracted a key element of the FBI approach. Overall, the FBI approach has been highly criticised, even for fundamental methodological issues such as having a restricted sample of only one kind of criminal (Ainsworth, 2001).
Therefore, a new method of offender profiling needed to be established which followed established psychological theories, had strong methodological backing and had a practical use for criminal investigations. IP arguably does just that. GOP for example, has strong theoretical backing from the Crime Pattern Theory (Brantingham and Brantingham, 1984, 1993) and Routine Activities Theory (Cohen and Felson, 1979.) Crime Pattern Theory states that offenders travel daily between ‘nodes’ such as where they work, live, and visit: when travelling between these nodes they are more likely to commit crime (Rossmo, 2009). Similarly, Routine Activities Theory suggests that offenders are more likely to commit crime where they are motivated, there is a suitable victim or target, and there is an absence of a guardian- this could be the absence of a security guard or lack of CCTV. All of these things are easier to come across in a location near where the offender is based, because they are more familiar with the environment. Thus, GOP is heavily backed by these psychological theories and the link between offending and a familiar environment. IP also has strong methodological backing, as it was developed alongside actual police investigations involving all levels of crime (Canter, 2018), and has had extensive research and evaluative backing (Canter, 1996; 2018.) Finally, IP also has strong practical use because it fundamentally revolves around applied use by the police to improve criminal investigation. It also goes without saying that GOP has strong applied value in Dragnet, given its contribution to real life cases such as ‘the Railway Rapist’ and the ransom phone calls of Simon Wadland.
In conclusion, the contributions that an Investigative Psychologist can make to criminal investigationscan be very useful, particularly in the UK where there is a wealth of research surrounding spatial behaviour of criminals (Canter,2005), and especially through the application of GOP. However, more work needs to be done to understand criminal spatial behaviour in other countries to further the application of GOP (Hammond, 2014), and IP on the whole outside of the UK.
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