1. What was Francis Henry Galton's major contribution to forensic science? Francis Henry Galton founded the system of fingerprinting. He is an English scientist, biometrician,and explorer whom also founded the science of eugenics. Due to his studies of anthropometric research, fingerprints are still in use to date.
WEEK 2, INDIVIDUAL WORK ASSIGNMENT To: Jorge Villarruel From: Kim Johnson Date: April 24, 2014 Re: Week 2 Assignment, some history on forensic science. 1. What was Francis Henry Galton’s major contribution to forensic science? Englishman Francis Henry Galton was the first to undertake the definitive study of fingerprinting and he developed the first method of classifying fingerprints for filing. In 1892, he published the book “Finger Prints”, and it contained the first statistical proof supporting the uniqueness of his method of identification.
The investigated violent crimes that came came under the jurisdiction of the FBI. As they both progressed in their career they began to study why some offenders committed violent crime and some who became serial killers. In the Ressler book “Whoever Fights Monsters” the violent offender was wrote about. Ressler wanted to show the offenders make-up of why they committed violent crimes, how their family dynamics at their early ages might have caused their violent behavior. Ressler focused a majority of his writing around some of the well known serial killers and violent offenders with such names as Manson, Bundy, and Kemper.
Early work on offender profiling by the FBI indicated a broad distinction between organised offenders and disorganised offenders. This distinction was based on interviews and case details of 36 serial sex offenders who volunteered to be interviewed about their crimes. Since its first appearance, the organised/disorganised distinction has been widely cited in academic literature and used as a model by professional investigators. According to the Crime Classification Manual (Douglas et al., 1992), the organised/disorganised typology can be applied to all sexually motivated murder and some cases of arson. In 1992, Douglas suggested that a third category of ‘mixed’ offender be added to the twofold category system, to accommodate those offenders who cannot easily be categorised as either organised or disorganised.
Courtroom Discretion Q&A Response Misty Moore, Victoria Hardin and Elizabeth Ortiz CJA/224 September 19, 2011 Rick Rice Courtroom Discretion Q&A Response What is prosecutorial discretion? When a crime happens evidence is gathered, witnesses are found and a case file is established all the information. Due to an overabundance of case files, prosecutors review each file and which will be brought to trial. When there is enough evidence to convince the prosecutor the person suspected of committing the crime is guilty without a reasonable doubt, he or she will pursue the case to trial. Many decisions pertaining to a case going to trial and how actively they pursue the case are left up to prosecutors and how they view the evidence and what the evidence means to them.
Profile generation is the final stage and is where the offenders profile is developed, usually including an age range, ethnicity and social class, type of work, habits and personality. A strength of the US approach is that it has helped investigators to find criminals. An example of where the US approach has helped to catch a criminal is the Arthur Shawcross case where profilers Grant and McCrary developed an identical profiler to the killer which
The solution in this case the court ruled that any testimony as incriminating and exculpatory can be used in court only if the prosecution can prove that the suspect prior to interrogation was informed of the right to counsel and the right against self-incrimination . In the case of the suspect of his rights must prove voluntariness of that refusal. In the United States, New York was the first city to have a professional police force (Peak, 2012). While the city was richer, crime also increased. In the 1830s, the whole family could read stories about horrifying and sensational crimes, published in popular newspapers that began circulating.
Uniform Crime Reporting Over time there have been multiple databases created and used by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies in the United States. One of the first to be created was the Uniform Crime Reporting or UCR. The main function was to provide a database for storing and tracking crimes across the United States. The most important features of this system are the ability to track crime trends, create statistical analysis, connect agencies nationally, and public knowledge. The UCR Program was thought of and put into effect in 1929 by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP).
After hearing these investigators use this entire vocabulary of perfect scientific lingo, they manage to make complete conclusions about the offenders’ identity and involvement in the crime, and often extract a confession from the perpetrator, all within an hour. Much of the forensic science procedure depicted in these fictional programs is unrealistic and idealized (Cole & Dioso-Villa, 2009). Shows like these often mislead a person to believe something that is not when dealing with a criminal case. In his 2011 article, Mancini discusses the outcomes of two separate surveys that were completed by criminal justice professionals pertaining to their thoughts of the “CSI Effect:” “Since CSI’s debut in 2000, numerous professionals within the criminal justice system have expressed a deep-seated belief in the existence of the Effect. For example, in a survey study of 36 police officers and 127 forensic investigators, Stinson, Patry, and Smith (2007) found that the vast majority believed that forensic science television programs have influenced the public’s perception of
They use the growing knowledge from psychiatry, psychology, criminology, and sociology, and utilize each in the field of criminal profiling. (3) Like in every job, criminal profilers have specific responsibilities that their job entails. It is a world of investigation and research impacted by inductive and deductive reasoning, crime-solving experience and knowledge of criminal behavior, facts, and statistical probabilities (1). Profilers are there to help investigators examine evidence from crime scenes and victim and witness reports to develop an offender description including psychological variables such as personality traits, psychopathologies and behavior patterns, as well as demographic variables such as age, race or geographic location. Investigators