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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 4:02 am
Time: 4:02 am
Results for crime scenes
3 results foundAuthor: Lehmann, Robert J.B. Title: Using Crime Scene Behavior for Risk Assessment in Sexual Offenders Summary: Sexual offending represents an important judicial, clinical, and policy issue and tends to invoke considerable public concern. Recent meta-analytic research indicates that about 8% of men and 20% of women had suffered some form of sexual abuse prior to the age of 18 (Pereda, Guilera, Forns, & Gomez-Benito, 2009). Tjaden and Thoennes (2006) report a lifetime prevalence of rape in men of about 3% and in women of about 18%. Accordingly, courts, police, and forensic practitioners invest considerable resources in predicting and preventing sexual offending by known sexual offenders. In general, those involved in assessing an offender's risk for future sexual offending seek to collect diverse information about the offender and the offenses committed to inform their decisions. Furthermore, the importance of including crime scene information into forensic risk assessment (referred to as "risk assessment" from hereon) is emphasized throughout the literature (e.g., Beech, Fisher, & Thornton, 2003; West, 2000). In Germany, the analysis of crime scene behavior is an essential part of clinical-idiographic risk assessment (Rasch, 1999). Expert witnesses are implicitly required by law to explain an offender's risk by providing evidence from their crime scene behavior. Indeed, the courts have placed increasing demand on the analysis of an offender's crime scene behavior to date. Moreover, the analysis of an offender's criminal behavior following a clinical-idiographic approach (Dahle, 2005) is part of the minimum standards of risk assessment in Germany (Boetticher et al., 2007). In spite of the theoretical relevance of crime scene analysis (CSA) for risk assessment, there is little empirical evidence to support what crime scene behavior is most relevant for risk assessment. Therefore, the empirical analysis of the predictive accuracy of crime scene behaviors for the assessment of future sexual offending is needed. For example, whereas frequently used actuarial risk assessment methods rely heavily on the criminal history of an offender with only limited and a-theoretical inclusion of crime scene related variables, CSA could also be applied in cases where offenders have no such criminal history (i.e., first-time offenders) or where the criminal history is simply unknown (e.g., foreign offender). Furthermore, according to German regulations, risk assessment can only be completed using a clinical-idiographic risk assessment approach, which pays particular attention to the individual circumstances and characteristics (e.g., crime scene information) of a particular case. To provide for a scientific and controllable framework as well as for transparency, it is essential to structure the clinical-idiographic assessment content-wise and to follow specific methodological guidelines. In terms of the theoretical and empirical basis for the process of analyzing the crime scene behavior evaluators have to draw on, for example, general theories of criminality and social psychology or dated (non-validated) offender typologies. So far, there are no explicit guidelines or risk assessment instruments assisting the evaluator to structure the CSA or indicating what is the relevant information to include. Therefore, the possibilities for quality control (e.g., comprehensiveness, completeness) of the CSA are limited. To diagnose deviant sexual preferences diagnosticians often rely on the self-report assessment of the patients themselves. However, given the elevated risk associated with a diagnosis of a sexual paraphilia, patients may have a tendency for dissimulation. To overcome this problem researchers have recently suggested the use of behavioral indicators derived from a person's criminal history as a complementary method for diagnosing sexual paraphilia (Nitschke, Mokros, Osterheider, & Marshall, 2012). In addition to being a useful complement for the clinical diagnosis of sexual paraphilia, crime scene behavior could generally provide potentially rich information about other enduring offender propensities as well. These propensities (e.g., whether a sexual offense was motivated by general antisocial behavior or sexualized aggression) could have important implications for risk assessment, offender treatment, and police investigations. They could help therapists to identify the important clinical phenomena evident in the offense behavior or could inform risk assessment for police investigations in cases where the offender has yet to be identified (e.g., behavioral investigative advice). Altogether, crime scene information is an important and understudied factor that might be a valid contribution to risk assessment as well as for other applied contexts (e.g., the delivery of treatment services). Crime scene information is valuable as it is a more objective measure of what the offender actually did, and is not dependent on self-report. Also, it should commonly be available and easily assessable by the analysis of victim statements, police reports, and court decisions. However, to date no systematic and theory-based empirical evaluation is available that tries to identify the relevant crime scene information to be included into a comprehensive risk assessment. Details: Berlin: Freie Universitat Berlin, 2014. 83p. Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed September 28, 2016 at: http://www.diss.fu-berlin.de/diss/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/FUDISS_derivate_000000015568/Lehmann.Robert.diss.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Germany URL: http://www.diss.fu-berlin.de/diss/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/FUDISS_derivate_000000015568/Lehmann.Robert.diss.pdf Shelf Number: 146119 Keywords: Crime AnalysisCrime ScenesCriminal InvestigationRisk AssessmentSex Offenders |
Author: Jannetta, Jesse Title: Oakland Stakeholder Perspectives of Homicide and Shooting Scene Response Summary: This report explores how stakeholders involved in homicide and shooting scenes in Oakland, California perceive their interactions with law enforcement and community partners. This study draws on interviews with shooting survivors, family members of homicide victims, Oakland Police Department officers, and community service providers and partner staff. It found that survivors and family members desired interactions with law enforcement officers and community partners that aligned with procedural justice principles, but they did not always perceive that they received it. Details: Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2019. 27p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 7, 2019 at: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/99612/oakland_stakeholder_perspectives_of_homicide_and_shooting_scene_response_3.pdf Year: 2019 Country: United States URL: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/99612/oakland_stakeholder_perspectives_of_homicide_and_shooting_scene_response_3.pdf Shelf Number: 154503 Keywords: Crime ScenesCriminal InvestigationsGun ViolenceHomicidesPolice-Citizen InteractionsProcedural Justice |
Author: Jannetta, Jesse Title: Procedural Justice in Homicide and Shooting Scene Response: Executive Summary Summary: This document summarizes findings from the literature review, practice review, and interviews conducted in Oakland by the Urban Institute (Urban) and the Urban Peace Institute (UPI) under the "Oakland Procedural Justice Principles for Police Officers" cooperative agreement with the City of Oakland. The work under this cooperative agreement is intended to inform Oakland's efforts to improve policies and practices related to the police department's management, response, and activities at shooting and homicide scenes, and to develop and implement procedural justice and related trainings for proactive and investigative police units. This document draws upon and synthesizes findings presented in more detail in documents devoted to the literature, practice review, and interviews conducted by our team. It presents findings on common issues, promising practices, and possible operational approaches to improving responses to shooting and homicide scenes in Oakland, organized by the four components of procedural justice. It then presents guiding principles for efforts to improve responses to homicide and shooting scenes using a procedural justice framework. Police play a critical role in reducing community violence, but their legitimacy can be undermined by a lack of community trust, particularly in high crime communities where intervention is needed most. Mistrust of law enforcement is especially acute among young men of color, especially those living in neighborhoods afflicted by crime and disorder associated with gang activity (Kennedy 2009; Liberman and Fontaine 2015). The absence of trust reduces the public's willingness to report crime, engage with law enforcement on crime control efforts, and abide by the law, since trust is a fundamental component of police legitimacy (Bradford et al. 2014; Tyler and Jackson 2014; Resig and Lloyd 2009; Sunshine and Tyler 2003). Because the investigative process relies heavily on key witnesses from the community, it is important that detectives engage in practices that are geared at maintaining legitimacy and cultivating trust. Procedural justice provides an operational framework for building police legitimacy and repairing relationships in communities affected by gun violence. Findings from a broad array of studies find a statistically significant relationship between procedural justice and police legitimacy, and that procedural justice carries greater weight than other variables (Hinds and Murphy 2007; Murphy 2005; Tyler 2003; Tyler and Fagan 2008). There is less evidence that shows that officers can deliberately create more legitimacy by being procedurally just. Details: Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2019. 20p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 7, 2019 at: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/99611/procedural_justice_in_homicide_and_shooting_scene_response_executive_summary_0.pdf Year: 2019 Country: United States URL: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/99611/procedural_justice_in_homicide_and_shooting_scene_response_executive_summary_0.pdf Shelf Number: 154505 Keywords: Crime ScenesCriminal InvestigationsGun ViolenceHomicidesPolice ResponsePolice-Citizen InteractionsProcedural Justice |