One also looks for any evidence of planning (e.g. bringing a knife, a condom, mask or bindings) and any overt evidence of fantasy (e.g. sexual topics of conversation, the taking of items of clothing such as pants, or deliberately inducing fear in a victim, beyond that needed to control her). Both planning and fantasy might suggest a serial rapist.
It is possible to categorise a rapist’s behaviour and speech in to three aspects. Two, ‘aggressive’ and ‘intimate’ describe the nature of the interaction with the victim which can be predominately one or the other, or alternatively some combination of the two. The third contains behaviours which can be thought of as ’criminal’. It is hypothesised that these have been acquired as a result of previous criminal experiences, such as previous sexual offending, property offences or experiences with the police and other aspects of the criminal justice system. (Approximately 85% of stranger rapists have criminal records in which property crime predominates, although a number of them also have particularly violent criminal antecedents, and this tendency to violence may be overtly expressed during a rape.)
Having carried out the analysis, a profiler then attempts to make probabilistic inferences that are practically useful to a police officer, such as how accurate the victim was likely to be in her estimate of the offender’s age; whether he is likely to have a criminal record, what sort of crimes it might contain, whether he has raped before and whether there is evidence that he may do so again. Unfortunately this procedure is less than straightforward. As I explained in an earlier article in this series, no individual’s behaviour is entirely consistent, as it is a product both of personality and of situational influences. A rapist’s behaviour will be affected by a victim’s resistance, her coping strategies, and by his perception of her attractiveness or desirability. He may be acting under the influence of either alcohol or drugs or be under pressure from other events in his life, such as marital strife, financial burdens or contacts with the criminal justice system.
Despite its drawbacks, offender profiling has proved to be useful, particularly when a profile has been used as way of prioritising suspects in intelligence-led DNA screens. Speaking from personal experience, it is a rather a bitter pill when one of ones better efforts at profiling has been rendered inconsequential as a result of a response to Crime Watch or a nomination from the DNA database!
3. The Identification of Serial Rape
The Serious Crime Analysis Section (SCAS) at the National Crime and Operations Faculty carries out comparative crime analysis (CCA) on certain categories of offences, particularly stranger rape, and sexually motivated murder and abduction. The definitions of ‘stranger’ rape vary, but police use the term to mean a rape where the identity of the offender is not known to the victim, nor can it be easily established by the investigatory team. Most CCA carried out by SCAS involve stranger rapes as they far outnumber the other two types of cases.
Identification of serial stranger rape involves the use of a number of features, including physical evidence, the description of the offender(s), his (or their) behaviour, and geographic and temporal patterning of the offences. In particular, physical evidence is very important. Recently, DNA matches have had a key role in initiating some of the most high profile serial rape investigations; e.g. LYNX (Yorkshire, Nottingham and Leicestershire), MONARCH (Sussex, London and Essex), and most recently ORB (Kent, Surrey, Hertfordshire and Birmingham). Physical evidence is also vital for support of hypothesised links, as well as conviction of offenders.
Spatial (geographic) and temporal features of stranger rape will be discussed in a later article. Here I will concentrate on a discussion of how serial stranger rape may be identified using aspects of an offender’s behaviour. Of course description of an offender is also important, but problematic for a number of reasons. In many stranger rapes a victim does not get a good view of the suspect. Many stranger rapes occur at night and a number of rapists, particularly the more experienced and cautious, try to conceal their faces. Furthermore, witnesses and victims make mistakes in their descriptions and are particularly bad at estimating height and age; they are much better at describing behaviour than they are appearance.
A major problem in the identification of serial rape using behavioural characteristics is that crime scene behaviours change across crimes due to external situational influences and internal learning processes. Human behaviour is not consistent because it is determined both by personality and by situation. Some people are more consistent in their behaviour than others; and some behaviours are more vulnerable to situational influences than others, as anyone who has tried to give up smoking, can testify.
Many authors (see below) have suggested that the behaviour of serial rapists can be viewed as comprising a number of aspects. The choice of geographical location and the setting of an attack are very much under a rapist’s control, and unsurprisingly, this ‘hunting’ aspect of behaviour tends to be one of the more consistent. Another aspect involves behaviours concerned with protecting the rapist’s identity, avoiding arrest and controlling the victim. Although all behaviour is learned over time with experience, these ‘modus operandi’ behaviours often develop perceptibly as a series progresses: however once a particular behaviour is acquired, it tends to be consistent, becoming part of a rapist’s internalised ‘criminal’ script.
Two types of behaviour are very much the product of personal characteristics of the offender – aggression and an apparent desire for a degree of personal intimacy with the victim during a rape; and perhaps oddly, both can be present in the same rapist. Although these behaviours are deeply embedded in a rapist’s emotional persona, their expression during a sexual assault may be very affected by the degree and type of resistance exhibited by the victim, and by her personal characteristics such as sexual attractiveness, age and social class.
It has been observed that the first case in a series may be very different from the rest, which is logical if one considers the learnt nature of criminal behaviour; a pattern becomes gradually established, hence it is understandable that a DNA match may be one of the earliest indicators of a developing series. Having at least two cases attributable to the same rapist, then gives an analyst some indication of the possible range of an offender’s behaviour, and tendencies to consistency. Of course it is also confirmation that this is not a ‘one off’ offender and that a search for other linked cases is merited. As well as features of geography, modus operandi, aggression and intimacy, the fine detail of an offender’s use of language can also be particularly useful in identifying further potential linked cases.
Although this is a very brief article on the basics CCA, hopefully it conveys some of the complexities involved in using behaviour to identify series. No-one really know which features are more useful (i.e. salient); and the larger the SCAS database becomes, the more need there will be for some automated method of prioritising cases which might be the work of one offender. At present forensic science and behavioural science have a complementary role, with that of forensic science perhaps under-exploited. It could be used more proactively, rather than relying on the National DNA database to churn out matches sooner or later. Furthermore, a Bayesian approach would provide a more rigorous basis for evaluating the evidence of linkage provided by behavioural characteristics, going some way to justify their use as similar fact evidence.
4. False Rape Allegations
Caveat
The information in this article comes primarily from the two publications, which are cited at the end. As I have had considerable investigative experience of suspected false allegations of rape, both as a forensic scientist and later, as a behavioural advisor, the article is biased in favour of material that I have found useful in determining whether an allegation was likely to be false. I have tended to focus on instances where the authors’ experiences (first publication) or findings (second publication) coincide with my personal knowledge of false allegations and their perpetrators. It is recommended that the reader should bear in mind that many of the theories relating to false allegations of rape remain untested. Equally important is an awareness that no single factor is significant in itself; it is usually a combination of features that indicate the possibility of a false allegation.
When I worked for the Metropolitan Police Service, I had occasion to survey their automated crime records (CRIS) for rape allegations made by male complainants. I discovered that a significant proportion of these cases were apparently false allegations. However, I have no personal experience of cases involving men who have made false allegations. My experience relates entirely to female complainants.
Introduction
False or exaggerated crime reports are not uncommon. People have been known to inflate the value of goods stolen in burglaries; to invent robberies in order to account for the loss of valuable items; and to report cars as stolen, when trying to avoid responsibility for ‘hit-and-run’ road accidents. False rape allegations are also of regular occurrence, although estimates of the prevalence vary because of the lack of an agreed definition; variability in the quality of investigations; and disparate methods of crime classification. The psychology relating to the police management of a complainant who has made an apparent false allegation, is not relevant to this article but it is of note that the complainant’s reaction may range from an emotional confession to an outraged denial, even when there is overwhelming evidence of fabrication - another reason why the actual number of false allegations cannot be reliably determined.
One definition of a false rape allegation is “a deliberately misleading account of a sexual assault where at least one of the three aspects of the crime are described untruthfully: the three aspects being a) the perpetrator(s), b) the acts that occurred and c) the setting in which the event took place” (Aiken et al., 1995). It has been said that there are three main categories of false allegation: an alibi (e.g. where the victim is under some pressure to explain her absence from home, illicit sex, or an unexpected pregnancy); revenge (e.g. when a relationship has ended, or advances rejected); and sympathy or attention seeking (which has been likened to Munchausen’s syndrome, where patients complain of medical symptoms for which no cause can be found, their motive being manipulation of medical professionals for psychological reasons).
The false allegations that seem to cause police investigator most problems, fall into the third category, where the victim is apparently seeking attention or sympathy, although in my experience there sometimes seems to be more than one motivating factor. I have seen cases where financial gain was a motive (criminal injuries compensation), and others that seemed to ‘solve a problem’ for the victim, as well as perhaps meeting a need for attention. One example of this involved a nun, who was allegedly raped on her way home to her North London convent, just before Christmas 1999. In order to make her allegation more convincing, she cut herself internally. The subsequent investigation took 10 weeks, and was estimated to cost in the region of £50,000. Although, she manifestly enjoyed and encouraged the attention of the press, it was believed that part of her motivation was increasing dissatisfaction with life in a religious order.
Features of false allegations
This section of the article highlights some of the features of false rape allegations that have been observed by behavioural scientists at the FBI Academy. The features fall broadly into five categories: characteristics of the complainants; the way the alleged offence is reported; the description of the offender or offenders; the ways the complainant was allegedly intimidated or injured; and the physical evidence.
i) The complainants
Complainants, who make false allegations of rape, often have histories of mental and/or emotional problems, and sometimes the rape allegation follows a series of escalating personal difficulties. Some have a medical history of medical symptoms for which doctors have been unable to find a cause. Indeed, some complainants are themselves members of professions involved with caring for other people, such as nursing. A significant number of false complainants are serial offenders.
ii) Reporting
False allegations have occurred after the topic of rape has received publicity for some reason, either because of a high profile rape of because of a fictionalised account. I have been involved in the investigation of a serial ‘allegator’, who reported rape by a taxi-driver, shortly after a ‘black cab’ rape had received much publicity, and with another case where the complaint was made just after a controversial rape had been portrayed in ‘East Enders’.
I think the most bizarre case of a false allegation that I have ever known, was made during the occurrence and investigation of a series of sexual assaults in the north Midlands. The police were alerted to the false allegation by a letter from the perpetrator of the genuine attacks. He pointed out the differences in modus operandi, objected to being “fitted up” and signed the letter as “Jack the Stripper”. Unfortunately (for him), he left a fingerprint on the letter, which led to his identification and arrest – a sort of happy ending!
Many false rape allegations are not reported directly to the police; often the first person that is informed is a friend, boyfriend or an associate. Alternatively the supposed victim first seeks medical help.
iii) The description of the alleged offender
The description of the assailant is often problematic to a complainant making a false allegation; some typical scenarios are:
- the complainant can’t describe her attacker because she kept her eyes closed;
- the assailant was a complete stranger or a person who she can only describe in vague and non-specific terms; or
- the complainant describes someone in the room, or someone she knows, or someone famous.
In one case with which I was involved the victim alleged she was unconscious for most of the attack and therefore did not get a good look at her attacker. This case was being considered as one case in a high rape profile series, where the British police had brought in an FBI profiler, and it was he who identified the false allegation. (Being unconscious during the attack also meant the complainant could not describe the sexual acts in any detail. A tendency to describe a smaller range of sexual acts is also said to be typical of false complainants - one can only describe what one knows.)
iv) Intimidation and violence
False complainants of rape are sometimes at pains to describe how their resistance was overcome, citing several offenders or a physically very strong one, whereas genuine victims are more often controlled through fear caused by threats or brandishing of a weapon. Occasionally claims of victimisation are bolstered by alleging threats either before or after the attack, either by phone, letter or in person. One such victim alleged she was stalked at home after her rape and the police force involved actually installed a CCTV camera, but unsurprisingly failed to obtain a sighting.
Occasionally, the false complainant will inflict injuries upon herself to support her story. For example, I dealt with a case where the victim had five finger marks on each thigh which she said were due to her attacker forcing her legs her apart. However the patterning was consistent with self-infliction, i.e. left-hand finger-marks on left thigh, right-hand finger-marks on right thigh, and on each leg, the thumb-mark was at the top of the patterning. Had the marks been inflicted by an assailant, I would have expected to see right hand marks on the left thigh, and left hand marks on the right thigh, together with very different patterning. I suggested that the police obtain an opinion from a pathologist, who was familiar with self-inflicted wounds, which they did.
v) Evidence
The final and very important category of features indicating a false rape allegation is either the absence of corroborating physical evidence or a degree of inconsistency. Like describing a non-existent attacker, describing a non-existent scene may also present problems, which can be avoided by failure to recall where the rape actually took place, despite there being no plausible reason for this. On the other hand, describing an actual place presents other difficulties, for instance a scene examination of, say, a grassy place, may reveal no evidence of disturbance. More conclusively, two recent allegations of rape were shown to be problematic because in each case, the supposed area where the rape took place was under surveillance by CCTV, which had recorded nothing.
In cases where the complainant has injured herself, sometimes the damage to the clothing is inconsistent with the injuries. This happens rarely but can be important. The only instance of this scenario that I was involved in, was not a rape case, but one where a man had apparently injured his own back using a razor-blade (alleging that his wife’s boyfriend was responsible). The marks were remarkably superficial. They were consistent with having been made by someone holding a blade over his own shoulder and bringing the blade up the flesh, i.e. approximately vertical, but slightly curved and deepest at the bottom. The cuts in the shirt did not correspond with the cuts, even allowing for a moving body, the angles of the cuts were entirely different.
The most important type of inconsistency of physical evidence is absence of semen or other physical traces from the alleged rapist. Not only has this found to be important in many of the cases with which I have dealt personally, it has also been described as the most effective distinguishing criterion of a false allegation by Parker and Brown in their study of false allegations (empirically). A very brief summary of their findings follows.
Statement Validity Analysis (SVA)
The principles of SVA are based on the hypothesis that statements from the memory of actual experience will differ in quality and quantity from subjectively based statements derived through fantasy. The technique has been used to evaluate statements from adult complainants of rape (Parker and Brown, 2000). These authors stated that the technique was analogous to forensic science, as it provided an objective and scientific measure of established psychological features in written communications, it could thus be termed ‘forensic linguistics’.
The study comprised 43 statements and the results showed that 24 were credible. The veracity of three could not be determined, and 16 were found to be non-credible (19 in total). In essence, the SVA results corresponded to the police classification of these cases. Twelve of the 19 statements that were deemed either indeterminate or non-credible were officially classified as false, and seven were classified as unsubstantiated. Five of the twelve false allegations involved serial ‘false allegers’, found to be suffering from psychiatric disturbances; four involved an admission of malicious intent; two involved delusional alcoholics who later withdrew their allegations; and the final case involved an epileptic serial alleger suffering post-seizure rape delusions.
The study found that the most effective distinguishing criterion of a false allegation was lack of corroborating forensic or physical evidence. Genuine allegations tended to contain descriptions of a wider range of sexual acts, and typically the genuine victim gave a full and highly detailed account of verbal instructions by the perpetrator and managed to recall exact words used. Furthermore, genuine victims tended to give subjective and emotionally rich accounts of their feelings during the rape, together with insights into the perpetrator’s mental state.
Conclusion
Parker and Brown’s results regarding the richness in detail of genuine accounts of rape as regards the victim’s recall of what the offender did and said, his apparent state of mind and her feelings, corresponds with the experiential findings of Aiken et al. that in contrast, false allegations were often lacking in detail regarding the description of the offender and the scene. As Parker and Brown suggested both sets of conclusions can be explained by the difference in describing events from memory rather fantasy. Similarly, both publications concurred about genuine victims describing a greater range of sexual acts and, the highly significant part that forensic science plays in identifying false allegations.
5. Geographic Profiling
Geographic profiling can be considered as an offshoot of environmental criminology, which focuses less on criminals’ motivation and more on how criminal and their victims (or targets) intersect in time and space. Environmental criminology owes much to concepts of social geography, particularly that of cognitive mapping, which has been described by geographers as the means by which individuals acquire, store and manipulate information about the nature of their spatial environment. Everybody has an internal map of their world, which develops from childhood, and enlarges with experience; the more an individual travels, the more extensive is his internal mental map. Obviously its development is mediated by social and personal factors such as income, type of employment, sociability and social networks. Ones cognitive map includes areas that are very familiar, those that are less familiar, those that are avoided for various reasons, and those of which one is aware but has not personally visited.
Individuals prefer familiar neighbourhoods and through their routine daily activities, tend to become very familiar with the neighbourhood round their home, which is for may people their main ‘anchor point’. Other features of a person’s social environment which also serve as geographical anchor points are previous addresses, the homes of friends and relatives and places of work and entertainment. Criminals also prefer familiar areas and serial offenders’ crimes tend to form clusters round his or her home or other anchor points.
Another factor affecting crime site choice is that of ‘least effort’ which in turn leads to the effect of distance decay. People tend to conserve energy, time and money, and this affects their travel patterns. For instance, we go to nearby shops wherever possible, and we are less inclined to visit friends who live a long way away (or in my case on the other side of London), because of the time and effort involved in travelling to and fro. On the other hand, if there is something particular we want to buy, we may make a special effort to go to a city centre or a particularly large shopping mall. Similarly, offenders travel no further than they have to, which again means that most of their crimes tend cluster round anchor points. However, in a manner exactly analogous to the special shopping expedition, criminals are prepared to travel further if the perceived rewards are large enough – the distance travelled being proportional to the anticipated financial gain.
Whilst I was seconded to the Home Office, I and a colleague carried out a study of stranger rapists’ offence patterning. We found that most rapists offended relatively close to their home bases: 20% were within one mile of home; 75% within 5 miles and 90% within 10 miles. We carried out a qualitative study of those rapists who were over 10 miles from home when they approached their victims, and found a number of reasons for the greater distances, which tied in with other peoples’ research findings (always a comfort). Some rapists were heavily criminalised, often going in and out of prison, and although registered at hostels or other temporary accommodation, tended to drift around areas, sleeping rough or staying with friends. Others were ‘professional’ criminals, who either burgled or robbed for relatively high rewards or were drug dealers. These men appeared to carry out rapes more or less opportunistically whilst carrying out other sorts of criminal activity.
Some offenders were familiar with dispersed neighbourhoods, often because of having lived in various parts of the UK, e.g. having been brought up in Scotland and moved to England later in life. These men tended not to travel to these distant but familiar places to rape, but to travel for social reasons and rape whilst there. Some offenders were forced to travel further in search of suitable victims. For instance, those who lived in rural areas had to travel to nearby towns and city centres to find places where large numbers of potential victims were available. On the other hand, rapists who lived in cities tended to have to travel less far, unless they went in search of particular types of victims, e.g. prostitutes in red light areas.
A very few rapists made sure that they were some distance from home when they offended because they knew that the police might be aware of their activities, and they felt that there was less chance of being identified and arrested if the rapes occurred at some distance from base. These tended to be serial rapists whose crimes had featured in the media, and the phenomenon is termed ‘geographic displacement’. Other serial sex offenders had occupations that allowed them to search for victims at longer than usual distances from home. This behaviour is more typical of murderers, such as Robert Black and the Yorkshire Ripper, though the offender who was recently the subject of Operation ORB also fell into this category.
Inferences, about where a stranger rapist might live, are routinely made in offender profiles, but a geographic profiler is usually only called in for serial offences where there are five or more crime sites. The area containing the crime sites is analysed using a computerised algorithm that constructs a probability surface, which provides a probability of offender residence for any point on the surface, ranging from the highly probable to the least. The points are aggregated into zones, each containing a specific range of probabilities. The different zones can be represented by different colours or by contours.
(Should the offender not live within this area containing the crime sites, i.e. because he commutes from home to another area to commit his rapes, then the computer system cannot be used. A geographic profiler has to consider this possibility before using the software.)
The computer algorithm is rather more sophisticated than the ‘centre of gravity’ principle used by Kind. It incorporates a distance decay curve – anyone really interested in the maths should read Kim Rossmo’s book on geographic profiling! Certainly in Operation LYNX, where the centre of gravity of the rape sites was obviously Leeds, the probability surface generated by the programme indicated two areas of high probability in different parts of Leeds, respectively Millgarth and Killingbeck. The offender lived in one and his mother lived in the other, and the geographic profile played a major part in identifying the rapist as part of an intelligence led screen of fingerprint records.
Relevant Publications
Ainsworth, P.B. (2001). Offender Profiling and Crime Analysis. United Kingdom: Willan.
Aiken, M.M., Burgess, A.W. and Hazelwood, R.R. (1995). False Rape Allegations. In R.A. Hazelwood and A.W. Burgess (Eds.), Practical Aspects of Rape Investigation: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Second Edition, pp.219-240. Boca Raton FA: CRC Press.
Copson, G. (1995). Coals to Newcastle? Part 1: a study of offender profiling. Police Research Group Special Interest Series: Paper 7. London: Home Office.
Davies, A. and Dale, D. (1995). Locating the Stranger Rapist. Police Research Group Special Interest Series: Paper 3. London: Home Office.
Davies, A., Wittebrood, K. and Jackson, J.L. (1998). Predicting the Criminal Record of A Stranger Rapist. Policing and Reducing Crime Unit Special Interest Series: Paper 12. London: Home Office.
Douglas, J. E., & Munn, C. M. (1992a). Modus Operandi and Signature Aspects of Violent Crime. In R. K. Ressler, J. E. Douglas, A. W. Burgess, and A. G. Burgess (Eds.), Crime Classification Manual, pp. 259-268. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Douglas, J. and Munn, C. (1992b, February). Violent Crime Scene Analysis. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin: 1-10.
Farrington, D. and Lambert, S. (2000). Statistical Approaches to Offender Profiling. In D. Canter and L. Alison, (Eds.), Profiling Property Crimes, pp. 233-273. England: Dartmouth.
Francis, B., Barry, J., Bowater, R., Miller, N. Soothill, K. and Ackerly, A. (2004). Using homicide data to assist murder investigations. Home Office Online Report 26/04.
Grubin, D., Kelly, P. and Brundson, C. (2001). Linking Serious Sexual Assaults Through Behaviour . Home Office Research Study 215. London: Home Office.
Hazelwood, R.R. and Burgess, A.W. (1995). Practical Aspects of Rape Investigation: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Second Edition. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Jackson, J.L. and D.A. Bekerian, D.A. (Eds.), (1997). Offender Profiling: Theory, Research and Practice. Chichester: Wiley.
Knight, R.A., Warren, J.I., Reboussin, R. and Soley, B.J. (1998). Predicting Rapist Type from Crime-Scene Variables. Criminal Justice and Behaviour, 25/1: 46-80.
Mokros, A. and Alison, L.J. (2002). Is offender profiling possible? Testing the predicted homology of crime scene actions and background characteristics in a sample of rapists. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 7: 25-43.
Myhill, A. and Allen, J. (2002). Rape and sexual assault of women: the extent and nature of the problem. Home Office Research Study 237. London: Home Office
Parker, A.D. and Brown, J. (2000) Statement validity Analysis as a means of determining truthfulness or falsity of rape allegations. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 5: 237-259.
Rossmo, D.K. (2000). Geographic Profiling. Boca Raton FA: CRC Press.
Rossmo, D. K., Davies, A. and Patrick, M. (2004). Exploring the geo-demographic and distance relationships between stranger rapists and their offences. (Special Interest Series: Paper 16). London: Research, Development and Statistics Directorate, Home Office
Soothill, K., Francis, B., Ackerley, A. and Fligelstone, R. (2002). Murder and Serious Sexual Assault: What criminal histories can reveal about future serious offending. Police Research Series, Paper 144. London: Home Office.
West, A.G. (2001). From Offender Profiler to Behavioural Investigative Advisor: The Effective Application of Forensic Science to the Investigation of Major Crime. Police Research and Management, 5/1: 95-108.
