Can investigative psychology make pragmatic contributions to criminal investigations?

By contributions, I am referring to any advancements in knowledge that can help improve the efficiency of investigations (think about the investigative cycle and how any stage could be improved).

I purposely use the term ‘pragmatic’ because we also want to know if the knowledge generated from IP research is applicable to the real-world (e.g., can Dragnet really reduce search costs, is the IP approach to profiling more accurate than guess-work?).

To answer this question, you need to dig deep into the literature and find research that evaluates the effectiveness of IP-related approaches to criminal investigations.

Potential topics:

Offender Profiling

Crime Linkage

Geographical Offender Profiling


Structure:

Introduction

Explain the fundamental principles of IP and how it emerged (learning outcome 1) (Approx. 300)

Main body

Explain the IP approach to criminal investigations (i.e., criminal differentiation, crime linkage, GOP,

suspect elicitation and prioritisation, A-C equation- you do not have to cover it all). (Approx. 600)

Evaluating the effectiveness of IP. Draw on a plethora of empirical literature to appraise the efficacy

of the Investigative Psychology approach. Highlight the strengths and limitations. (Approx. 850)

The above two points could be merged together.

Conclusion

Sum up your findings and consider directions for future research (Approx. 250)

Assignment brief attached below