The Psychology Student Survival Guide App

I'm delighted to announce that The Psychology Student Survival Guide is now available as a free app for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad; which you can access via the following link.

The Psychology Student Survival Guide App

The text (PDF) version of The Psychology Student Survival Guide is also still available.

The Psychology Student Survival Guide (PDF Version).

---

Please share this Forensic Psychology Blog Post with others by adding it to your social bookmarks.

---

www.all-about-forensic-psychology.com

A Free & Comprehensive Guide to The World of Forensic Psychology



See following link to access great content and connect with thousands of psychology fans across the world.

http://www.facebook.com/psychologyonline

Read Serial Killer & FBI Profiling Classics on Kindle

Information on Serial Killers

---

The Psychology Student Survival Guide App

The Psychology of a Serial Killer (update)

As the hunt for the Suffolk serial killer continues and as the case unfolds I will be posting regular updates, particularly in relation to any psychological information or theories. I will also be including links to the latest police briefings and any other credible information sources.

If you would like to be alerted as soon as a new psychology of a serial killer post appears, you can do so by clicking on the orange RSS button (bottom left hand side of the page) to receive automatic content updates in My Yahoo!, Newsgator, Bloglines, and other news readers. Alternatively you can get instant updates via e-mail (see subscribe link, also bottom left hand side of page). You can also bookmark each update by clicking on the social bookmark this link that appears after each post.

Media Watch



Headline

KILLER WIL BE THINKING: THE GAME'S ON

Published

13th December

Psychology aspect

Written by Mike Berry Criminal Psychologist From Manchester Metropolitan University

Key points

Psychological Profile

White male, aged 25-40, works odd hours Will live, work, or have holidayed locally May meet prostitutes as part of his work.

Psychological opinions

Police are hunting an exceptionally cold-blooded murderer with the potential to become, in the short term, Britain's most prolific serial killer.

What makes this man particularly terrifying is that he has killed two women before and then gone out with the deliberate intention to strangle.

He may well find killing face-to-face more personal and because he is in control he will find it particularly enjoyable.

Yesterday's discovery of two women's bodies close to main roads was unusual and worrying. It may indicate it was a bit rushed or he might be clever and goading the police.

He could be motivated by a desire for revenge on women or specifically prostitutes for a number of reasons.

He may have left some indication at the scene of the crime or more likely at the spot he disposed of the victims' bodies. If so, I would expect the killer to have left a sign, such as a cross, for the police by now.

The killer seems confident and organised, suggesting he may be an older man. And he also seems comfortable in the red-light district - he could be a regular punter and probably known to them.

He knows the area well - he either works, lives or comes to the area to play. In all five cases he has taken the women's clothes off. Is it that he is worried about DNA or has he taken them as a trophy? I would suspect he has taken jewellery such as rings or earrings.

He has taken great risks to dump the bodies in public because the area has been crawling with police. As a result, I think he is confident and incredibly arrogant to dump two bodies within a few hundred yards of each other for the police to find. It is rare behaviour.

WHY take the risk unless you are showing off? We are talking about a serial killer who will soon be as famous as any of the other serial killers, such as the Yorkshire Ripper.

He is organised and in control without any doubt at all. He has had the nerve to dump at least one body in view of a busy road.

The killer may be confident he will not be caught. He will be fascinated by the coverage of the case on TV and almost certainly watching the police appeals to the public for information and to him to give himself up.

He will believe: "I've been recognised as a killer, the police recognise they are dealing with someone who is good at what they do."' To commit five murders is very skilful. Most killers only ever kill one person. It is rare to kill twice and rare to kill up to five people in separate events in such a short time.

Profiling serial killers is never an exact science but it is possible to draw up a range of characteristics this man is likely to have. He will probably be between 25 and 40 - no one younger would have the maturity to kill five women. He will also be white, because virtually no serial killers are black or Asian. He is passionately driven by a fantasy almost as if he is following a film which is playing in his head.

But he is also calm and organised. He can transport a body in his car, in the boot or back seat covered up. He must have a reliable car because he cannot risk breaking down at night. He probably has a job because of the car and is able to make the girls think it is worth their while to take a ride with him.

If the killer is not single his job requires him to work irregular hours or shifts so that he does not have unexplained absences, particularly at night when the girls go missing. It is unlikely to be a nine to five job. It is quite likely he does not work in an office, factory or building, but on the streets part of the time. These girls work the streets and are good at spotting potentially dangerous customers, but this guy is getting under their radar.

One of the possibilities is that the killer is someone the girls felt comfortable with - a taxi driver, church worker, nurse or even a policeman. He is somebody who does not raise suspicion by being in a red-light district.

Links



Click Here For The Latest Police Briefing

The following link from the BBC has information on each location in the murder trail and a profile of the victims.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/629/629/6175797.stm

---

For a free and comprehensive guide to the world of forensic psychology, including several pages dedicated to criminal profiling don't forget to visit the main forensic psychology website.

http://www.all-about-forensic-psychology.com/

---

The Psychology of the Serial Killer

Visitors from the UK will be aware that the news story currently gripping the country concerns the murder of several prostitutes, promting fears that a serial killer is on the loose. To date five bodies have been found near Ipswich over the past fortnight. The bodies of Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol and and Anneli Alderton, were all found in rural locations around Ipswich between the 2nd and the 10th of December. On the 12th of December two more bodies were found which are being formally identified today. Police strongly suspect that the bodies will prove to be the missing prostitutes Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls.



Since the story broke a number of criminal psychologists, forensic psychologists and other behavioural scientists have commented on the case.

Dr Ian Stephen a psychologist working with police on the current investigation stated that The killer is losing control and there is a compulsion taking over, he also claims that the recent deaths may be part of a larger killing spree, adding; "What may be an issue is that when he starts running out of prostitutes not becoming available, he will see any woman who's out on the street at night on their own as a prostitute and will target them as a possible victim."

Writing for the BBC Dr Stephen said the suspect was probably male, white, in his late 20s, 30s or 40s, and is someone who probably had been let down by women in his past.

"He maybe had a mother who has let him down, or a mother who has abandoned him," he added. "In some sense he may have idolised women and then they let him down." He also notes that the killer may be on "some kind of Christian mission" believing he is "clearing the world of prostitutes".

Speaking on BBC radio, Film-maker and criminologist Roger Graef said that he also believes the killer may have had negative experiences with women in the past.

"You can calculate if it's prostitutes that it's somebody who was damaged by a woman, who is ashamed of his own impulses possibly, who is, you know, a religious zealot, who feels that they're corrupting the whole of mankind."

During an interview for the BBC newsnight, Professor David Canter, from the Centre for Investigative Psychology, said that while "almost certainly" the killings were the work of one individual, there were too few details yet to form a detailed profile of the suspect.

"It is difficult to assume anything at the moment without a lot more detailed information," he told BBC Newsnight...because serial murders are rare, it is difficult to generalise about the killers involved..The two or three individuals that come to mind have all been rather disturbed but they have very different characteristics...Some of them found their way into these sorts of murders really from a life of crime where they just become ever more extreme in their criminal acts and in their violence...Some serial killers also have a "bizarre understanding of the nature of women" and may attack women because they believe they are "seductresses who destroy their virtue",

Professor Canter inicated that it was more likely that the case would be solved by using police records to try to discover where the suspect may be based rather than building an "intense personal description of the offender". To read more about the work of Professor David Canter and the Centre for Investigative Psychology just click on the following link.

http://www.all-about-forensic-psychology.com/david-canter.html

Video Link

To watch a video of consultant forensic psychologist Dr Ian Stephen discussing the case just click on the following link.

Click Here To Watch The Video

What is Forensic Psychology?

When my students arrived for their first forensic psychology lecture, I would always start by giving them 10 minutes to write down an answer to the question what is forensic psychology?

Before reading on, why not quickly write down what you think forensic psychology is.

The reason I did this was because despite the fact that every single undergraduate psychology student (about 180 of them) chose to do the forensic psychology course; not one of them came to see me in advance to ask what the course was about.

Now bear in mind students chose their courses well in advance of the start date, and in order to make an informed choice they were all strongly advised to speak to the lecturer running the courses they were interested in before making a final decision. So why the no show?

I can't hear a thing, can you?



I suspect, well actually I know because I discussed it with the students afterwards, that they didn't feel they had to find out what forensic psychology is, because they already had a preconceived idea.

I mentioned I would give students 10 minutes to write down an answer to the question what is forensic psychology, what I didn't mention, however, is that after about 2 minutes I would ask for their attention and apologise for forgetting to tell them that they weren't allowed to use the words serial killers or silence of the lambs in their answer. It was usually as this point that most of the writing in the lecture theatre stopped.



If you're thinking I would have stopped writing as well, please contain your disappointment and don't rush off just yet. The answer to the question, what is forensic psychology may not quite be what you thought, but that doesn't mean that the subject has to be any less engaging.

The first thing to appreciate when addressing the question is that even psychologists in the field are divided as to what the answer is.

The division of criminological and legal psychology within the British Psychological Society argued for twenty years as to whether their members should be entitled to call themselves Chartered Forensic Psychologists. It was finally agreed that they should, however, there still remains a great deal of debate and controversy surrounding the issue.

A fragmented discipline?

The central problem is that its members are drawn from a wide range of disciplines, so it is always difficult to state what the boundaries are when you talk of Forensic Psychology.

Psychologists in the prison/correctional services

Clinical psychologists in special hospitals & the psychiatric services

Educational psychologists

Occupational psychologists

Academics

Now while it is important to acknowledge that this fragmentation of role exists, it is just as important to realise that these different groups are linked to forensic psychology because their work, expert knowledge or research activity is somehow connected with the law.

This legal connection makes perfect sense when you consider that the word forensic comes from the Latin forensis, which literally means appertaining to the forum, specifically the imperial court of Rome. So in essence:

The debate as to what is and what isn’t forensic psychology rests primarily on the nature of psychology’s relationship with the legal system.

My preferred definition of forensic psychology is:

That branch of applied psychology which is concerned with the collection, examination and presentation of evidence for judicial purposes (Haward 1981).

If you adopt this definition you are stating categorically that Forensic Psychology relates to the provision of psychological information for the purpose of facilitating a legal decision (Blackburn 1996).

There is a school of thought that would claim that any activity that links psychology to the law deserves to be described as Forensic. I’m not going to try and convince you which is right, although I do have a strong opinion on the mater; the main thing is that you know that this debate exists.

Summary

In answering the question, what is forensic psychology we have discovered that:

In essence, forensic psychology refers to the application of psychology within a legal context.

The debate as to what is & what is not forensic psychology relates to the nature of this legal application & the level at which it is applied.

And this debate raises a number of questions that you need to think about. In particular:

The boundaries of forensic psychology

The role of the forensic psychologist

The credibility of forensic psychology

This article is taken from my main forensic psychology website.

Click Here To Visit The Site