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Early classification systems of fire setting have suffered from several limitations, including the lack of empirical validation and the focus mainly on the offender motivation behind this type of crime. More recent research shows that looking at the crime scene behaviors may present a more fruitful approach for helping to solve fire setting offenses. The purpose of this study is to advance current scholarship by developing a new typology of fire setting based on the combination of offender motive and crime scene behaviors.

Latent class analyses were used with a sample of 134 fire setters who committed 275 arsons from the Korean National Police Agency to identify distinct fire setter motivations and crime scene contexts. Chi-square and crosstabulation analysis were then conducted to determine whether crime scene behaviors were associated with distinct offender motives and vice versa. Lastly, to improve the external validity of each of the latent classes, chi-square analyses were performed using variables related to the fire setters' criminal history, sociodemographic characteristics and arson classification.

Five motive subtypes were identified as well as five distinct crime scene contexts in which serial fire setting occurs. A significant association among these classes suggests that it is possible to infer fire setters’ motive from crime scene behavior and vice versa.

This comprehensive typology of fire setters has potential for profiling of unknown offenders as well as for suspect prioritization in police investigations.

The purpose of this paper is to identify offender typologies based on aspects of the offenders’ psychopathology and their associations with crime scene behaviours using data derived from the National Confidential Enquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health concerning homicides in England and Wales committed by offenders in contact with mental health services in the year preceding the offence (n=759).

The authors used multiple correspondence analysis to investigate the interrelationships between the variables and hierarchical agglomerative clustering to identify offender typologies. Variables describing: the offenders’ mental health histories; the offenders’ mental state at the time of offence; characteristics useful for police investigations; and patterns of crime scene behaviours were included.

Results showed differences in the offenders’ histories in relation to their crime scene behaviours. Further, analyses revealed three homicide typologies: externalising, psychosis and depression.

These typologies may assist the police during homicide investigations by: furthering their understanding of the crime or likely suspect; offering insights into crime patterns; provide advice as to what an offender’s offence behaviour might signify about his/her mental health background. Findings suggest information concerning offender psychopathology may be useful for offender profiling purposes in cases of homicide offenders with schizophrenia, depression and comorbid diagnosis of personality disorder and alcohol/drug dependence.

Empirical studies with an emphasis on offender profiling have almost exclusively focussed on the inference of offender demographic characteristics. This study provides a first step in the exploration of offender psychopathology and its integration to the multivariate analysis of offence information for the purposes of investigative profiling of homicide by identifying the dominant patterns of mental illness within homicidal behaviour.

The anger/sadistic model is one of several typologies proposed for sexual homicide events. This paper aims to empirically test this model by examining sexual homicide cases. Empirically validating these typologies provides greater validity and reliability toward the sexual homicide classification systems that are useful in police investigations.

Secondary data analysis was conducted using police data on 249 solved sexual homicide cases in Canada from 1948 to 2010. Through a robust classifying method, latent class analysis was used to examine variables from the anger/sadistic typology. Additionally, variables from the pre-crime, crime and post-crime phases were examined in relation to the classes’ external validity.

Three classes emerged, namely, expressive, methodical and instrumental. Expressive and methodical were similar to the anger/sadistic model in terms of the presence of premeditation, victim-offender relationship and body disposal location. Instrumental was characterized by the absence of mutilation on the victim’s body, targeted acquaintances and the use of physical restraints. The three-class typology resembled evidence found in a previous systematic review and also reinforced the notion of heterogeneity in sexual homicide offenses.

This is the first study to empirically test the anger/sadistic typology. Such validation is important given that sexual homicide classification systems can aid in police investigations (e.g. narrowing down the list of potential suspects). Replication of studies is needed to lend credibility to research processes, which, in turn, allows practitioners and policymakers to integrate the results into policies effectively.

The present study aims to examine the scope and contribution of behavioural investigative advice (BIA) reports from the National Crime Agency (NCA).

The 77 BIA reports reviewed were written between 2016 and 2021. They were evaluated using Toulmin’s (1958) strategy for structuring pertinent arguments, current compliance with professional standards, the grounds and backing provided for the claims made and the potential utility of the recommendations provided.

Consistent with previous research, most of the reports involved murder and sexual offences. The BIA reports met professional standards with extremely high frequency. The 77 reports contained a total of 1,308 claims of which 99% were based on stated grounds. A warrant and/or backing was provided for 73% of the claims. Most of the claims in the BIA reports involved a behavioural evaluation of the crime scene and offender characteristics. The potential utility of the reports was judged to be 95% for informative behavioural crime scene analysis and 40% for potential new lines of enquiry.

The reports should serve as a model for the work of behavioural investigative advisers internationally.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to systematically evaluate BIA reports commissioned by the NCA; it adds to previous similar studies by evaluating the largest number of BIA reports ever reviewed, and uniquely provides judgement of overall utility.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether it is possible to identify different types of sadistic offenders within a sample of sexual homicide offenders (SHOs).

The study addresses this research question through the use of two-step hierarchal cluster analysis and binary logistic regression utilizing a sample of 350 cases of sexual homicide from Canada.

Results from cluster analysis show that three groups emerge: a non-sadistic group, a mixed group that show evidence of some sadistic behavior and a sadistic group that have high levels of sadistic behavior. Additionally, the sadistic cluster was more likely to destroy or remove evidence at the crime scene than the mixed and non-sadistic cluster and was more likely to leave the victim’s body at a deserted location than the non-sadistic cluster.

This is the first study to examine the dimensionality of sadism within a sample of SHOs.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether sexual homicide offenders (SHO) who dispose of the victim’s body naked present with particular crime scene characteristics.

This study aims to answer this question through the use of a sequential logistic regression to test the individual effects of each set of crime scene variables against the manner of disposal using a sample of 662 solved cases of extrafamilial sexual homicide from an international database.

Results demonstrated that the modus operandi behaviors of sexual penetration, asphyxiation, dismemberment and overkill were significantly associated with the body being disposed of naked. In addition, removing or destroying evidence from the scene was also significantly associated with a naked victim. In contrast, the body was more likely to be dumped clothed if the contact scene was deserted and the victim was a stranger. These results suggest that SHOs who dispose of the body naked are more in line with the sadistic sexual murderer, while clothed victims are often disposed of by angry offenders.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the particular manner of disposing the victim’s body naked in cases of sexual homicide.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the differences (if any) between serial and hard-to-solve one-off homicides, and to determine if it is possible to distinguish the two types of homicides based on offence behaviours and victim characteristics.

A sample of 116 Italian serial homicides was compared to 45 hard-to-solve one-off homicides. Hard-to-solve one-off homicides were defined as having at least 72 hours pass between when the offence came to the knowledge of the police and when the offender was caught. Logistic regression was used to predict whether a killing was part of a series or a one-off offence.

The serial killers targeted more strangers and prostitutes, displayed a higher level of forensic awareness both before and after the killing, and had more often an apparent sexual element in their offence. Conversely, the one-off homicides were found to include more traits indicative of impulsive and expressive behaviour. The model demonstrated a good ability (AUC=0.88) to predict whether a homicide belonged to the serial or one-off category.

The findings should be replicated using local homicide data to maximise the validity of the model in countries outside of Italy.

Being able to distinguish between serial and one-off homicides based on information available at a new crime scene could be practically useful for homicide investigators managing finite resources.

Studies comparing serial homicides to one-off homicides are scarce, and there are no studies explicitly trying to predict whether a homicide is an isolated case or part of a series.

All societies in the modern world are troubled by crime, and the general public is equally fascinated by criminals and fearful of criminal behaviour. In the United Kingdom, events such as the murders of Jack the Ripper, the Yorkshire Ripper and Harold Shipman, and the Soham tragedy, coupled with film and television programmes including Silence of the Lambs, Cracker and Crime Scene Investigation, have fuelled the public's consciousness of the criminal mind.In the fight against crime, the development of offender profiling by the FBI in the USA has further captured people's imagination. The technique was introduced to help law enforcement agencies solve serious crimes such as serial rape or murder, and to a lesser extent arson and property crime. At the heart of profiling lies the belief that by combining psychological principles with crime scene analysis, it is possible to identify the likely characteristics of a perpetrator.Although advances in crime detection are welcomed, the profiling field appears riddled with contradiction and disagreement. Social scientists argue that the discipline is unscientific due to methodologically weak research, while police officers appear sceptical about its benefits for solving crime. In Britain, profiling has witnessed both notable successes, for example Canter's profile of the serial rapist and murderer John Duffy, and dramatic failures, such as the Colin Stagg profile in the Rachel Nickell inquiry. This article reviews the offender profiling literature, examines its applicability in the legal system and identifies areas for future research.

Currently, no research is available for behavioural investigative advisors’ to provide justifications to infer from the crime scene that an offender is a UK or non-UK national. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Data were obtained from National Crime Agency and consisted of 651 stranger rapes, 434 UK nationals and 217 non-UK nationals. All cases were coded for 70 offence behaviour variables. χ² analyses were conducted to identify significant associations between offence behaviours and offender nationality. Significant associations were then entered into a logistic regression analysis to assess their combined predictive ability of offender nationality.

Analyses revealed 11 offence behaviours with significant associations to offender nationality: confidence, darkness, offender kisses victim, victim performs sex acts, requests sex acts, apologises, destroys forensics, block entry/exit, weapon – firearm, vaginal penetration – hands/fist/digital, and violence: minimal. From this, seven variables held predictive ability within the logistic regression, with five predicting the non-UK grouping and two the UK grouping.

Future research should test the distinctions between UK and non-UK national stranger rapists and explore the impact of length of residency.

Results indicated that on the whole UK and non-UK stranger rapists display similar behaviours, but there were some distinct behaviours within stranger rape crime scenes, particularly the use of firearms. The ability to use crime scene behaviours to narrow suspect pools by criminal conviction is only useful when police have access to full criminal histories. Unfortunately, the ability to access and search non-UK databases is not always possible. Therefore, this study may be the first step for BIAs to utilise in identifying the likely offender nationality, before using further models that narrow down to criminal history.

This is the first study to examine whether it is possible to differentiate stranger rapists nationality using their offence behaviours.

The popularity of television shows such as CSI:(insert appropriate city here) makes everyone think they are somehow a forensic expert. The portrayal of this kind of subject on radio is of course much more complicated as each observer has an image in their own head rather than in front of their eyes. This chapter seeks to inform The Archers listeners and other interested parties about the Blossom Hill Cottage crime scene examination — what they might expect to have seen from an evidential perspective and how the findings may inform the court as to what really occurred that fateful night. The chapter presents general information about different blood patterns that may be observed at crime scenes such as this and others, what they may (or may not) mean and a discussion about the strengths and limitations of this kind of scientific examination and interpretation. Whilst this can clearly be a serious subject, the intention is to inform and (probably) bust some televisual myths with a light-hearted edge from an Archers fan and fellow Tweetalonger, additionally considering online speculation about other potential evidence.