Psychological basis for offender profiling.

... Katie McGovern Psychological basis for offender profiling: There are two main branches of psychology which I think perform a basis for offender profiling. The first is social psychology, this deals with the behaviour of groups and the influence of social factors on the individual. These social factors could include the culture at the time e.g, popular films at the time, music, media coverage of a particular story etc. I think this could be a basis for offender profiling because profilers could investigate any possible cause of a murder case. The murder could link to any popular movement at the time, for example a horror film. An example of this would be the Jamie Buldger case, after the toddlers' murder it was discovered that his injuries were similar to acts carried out in a horror film that was later found at the perpetrators home. Understanding social psychology, therefore, could be quite useful when

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