In the last fifteen years, offender profiling has emerged in the United Kingdom to be generally regarded as having an important contribution to make to the investigation of very serious crimes, as well as being a perennial source of interest for the popular media. Despite this, very few critical evaluations of the theoretical and empirical basis for profiling have been carried out. The focus of this thesis is to provide such an evaluation, specifically on the use of offenders' offence behaviour to behaviourally profile and link serial, stranger rape offenders and offences. The research adds to the study of profiling and linking by providing a broader review of the problems in studying rape, such as legal definitions, the dark figure and differential reporting. The question of why profiling and linking make an assumption of behavioural consistency is examined and is suggested to lie in the adoption of a strongly motivation emphasis to the conceptualisation of the offender drawn from the broader aetiology of rape literature. These motivational explanations are contrasted against alternative theories of rape causation. The specific literature on the profiling and linking of rape is then reviewed, the relationship between profiling and linking assessed and then the evidence for the efficacy of profiling and linking examined. All are found wanting. Retheorisations of both the offender and the criminal event are offered with a less direct relationship between the two and the implications for profiling discussed. Finally, an empirical analysis of offender and offence data collected for this research is used to provide empirical support to some of the arguments made in the preceding discussion.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:597191 |
| Date | January 2003 |
| Creators | Butterworth, D. A. |
| Publisher | University of Cambridge |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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