Profiling stranger rapists: Linking offence behaviour to previous criminal histories using a regression model

Abstract

International research has suggested that rapist criminal histories can be predicted from certain offence behaviours. Ninety-six solved stranger rape cases were examined to determine if there was consistency in a New Zealand sample. Rapist behaviours during the offence were compared with criminal convictions prior to the rape. The primary statistical technique used was likelihood ratio stepwise binary logistic regression. Predictive utility of the results was limited, due to significant correlation coefficients between the criminal history variables. Nevertheless, the current study reflected the general findings of similar descriptive international research. These outcomes were: the majority of stranger rapists had prior criminal convictions, and the majority of those convictions were for property offences not sexual offending. Furthermore, ethnic minorities were over-represented among the offenders, and the majority of stranger rapists started committing their first known rapes in their midto late 20s. Finally, methodological difficulties were encountered during this study. This highlights the need to refine existing statistical approaches to predictive offender-based research.

Comparing the Predictive Accuracy of Case Linkage Methods in Serious Sexual Assaults

“…A coding dictionary was then created, on the basis of a number of previous studies on serial rape and sexual assault (Alison & Stein, ; Bootsma & Van Den Eshof, ; Canter et al , ; Dale, Davies, & Wei, ; Davies, ; Hazelwood & Warren, ; Goodwill & Alison, ; Grubin et al , ; Lundrigan et al , ; Park, Schlesinger, Pinizzotto, & Davis, ; Santtila et al , ; Scott, Lambie, Henwood, & Lamb, ; Woodhams et al , ). Initially, the coding dictionary comprised 150 dichotomous offender behaviours and offence characteristics.…”

Rape and sexual assault in investigative psychology: the contribution of sex offenders' research to offender profiling

“…Other attempts at linking offense characteristics to sex offender characteristics have used either some forms of multidimensional scaling (Canter et al, 2003;Häkkänen, Lindlöf, & Santtila, 2004;Kocsis, Cooksey, & Irwin, 2002) or regression analyses (e.g. Beauregard, Lussier, & Proulx, 2007a;Goodwill & Alison, 2007;Scott et al, 2006). In this issue, ter Beek, van den Eshof, and Mali used logistic regression on a sample of 271 stranger rape offenses included in the ViCLAS database of The Netherlands, and found that crime characteristics can be used to 'profi le' offender characteristics, thus providing further weight to the A → C equations.…”

“…Criminal career has proven very promising in the prioritisation of suspects (Scott, Lambie, Henwood, & Lamb, 2006). Police offi cers often rely on information about known suspects or offenders who were previously charged and convicted for a similar offense in order to start their investigation.…”

Predicting the Criminal Records of Male-on-Female UK Homicide Offenders From Crime Scene Behaviors

“…Some authors have favoured direct bivariate associations to explore the relationship between single offence behaviors and prior offences (e.g. Almond et al, 2018;Cole & Brown, 2014;Davies et al, 1997;Lea, Hunt, & Shaw, 2011;Scott, Lambie, Henwood, & Lamb, 2006;ter Beek, van den Eshof, & Mali, 2010). In the context of stranger rape, for example, Almond et al (2018) found in their replication of the classic Davies et al…”