The Future of Rational Choice for Crime Prevention by Danielle M. Reynald Benoit Leclerc

Author:Danielle M. Reynald, Benoit Leclerc [Danielle M. Reynald, Benoit Leclerc]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367227470
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2019-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

Crime scene reconstruction

In his work on criminal investigation, the Handbuch für Untersuchungsrichter (1893), Hans Gross established the criminal event as the centre of attention for scientific investigation. He specifically rejected the body-centred approach to criminal behaviour and the search for a ‘criminal type’. There was no distinctive population of criminals, and trying to determine the portion of criminals in the population was a formula for the impossible (Gross, 1907, p. 119–122). Rather, he derived his understanding of crime from the ‘scene of offence’.

The crime scene represented a space, to be described, analysed and understood by the investigator, whether a judge, police officer or lawyer. Based on objects left at the crime scene, and the relationship of objects to each other, it was possible to re-enact or reconstruct what had taken place (Burney & Pemberton, 2013). Understanding the events that had taken place could be achieved not only from careful analysis of the physical traces but also from their relationship to each other. In attempting to sketch the crime scene, the investigator began to understand what must have taken place. It was impossible to notice everything and the significance of an item might only become apparent sometime after the initial field work. There was no fixed relationship between objects found at the site and the thoughts of persons who had been there. The crime scene could be described from a ‘subjective’ point of view, that is, as the investigator experienced it or as it looked to perpetrator. Or, from an ‘objective’ point of view by which he meant describing the physical location of items from a given compass point (Gross, 1907, p. 137–138).

Rationality exists in relation to the crime scene, not as an aspect of human nature. The forensic approach is fundamentally different from the effort to conceive of rationality as a feature of brain development or biological process in relation to psychological functioning (Daly & Wilson, 1997). In addition to the Handbuch, Gross produced Criminal psychologie (1898). Where the handbook concerned material evidence, criminal psychology provided a guide for interpreting non-material evidence. It is important to understand that Gross did not mean thought processes of certain individuals, the ‘criminal mind’ in distinction from the ‘normal mind’. He referred to his approach as ‘phenomenological’, the deduction of inner thought processes from external clues, such as clothing, gait, gestures, expressions and voices. Clue-reading was meant to recover the ‘normal psychological’ process not a pathological process. Gross did not assume that surface signs could be linked concretely with thoughts or emotions; a particular facial expression could not be simply or consistently interpreted as revealing a specific emotion but registered different emotions across individuals (Vyleta, 2006, p. 411–412).

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.