Jessica Woodhams

University of Birmingham · School of Psychology

Purpose: This study compared the utility of different statistical methods in differentiating sexual crimes committed by the same person from sexual crimes committed by different persons. Methods: Logistic regression, iterative classification tree (ICT), and Bayesian analysis were applied to a dataset of 3,364 solved, unsolved, serial, and apparent...

The aim of the present study was to (a) assess the reliability with which indecent images of children (IIOC) are classified as being of an indecent versus nonindecent nature, and (b) examine in detail the decision-making process engaged in by law enforcement personnel who undertake the difficult task of identifying and classifying IIOC as per the c...

Purpose To conduct a test of the principles underpinning crime linkage (behavioural consistency and distinctiveness) with a sample more closely reflecting the volume and nature of sexual crimes with which practitioners work, and to assess whether solved series are characterized by greater behavioural similarity than unsolved series. Method A sampl...

The emotional reactions arising from the breaking of promises by or the failure of organizations to meet one or more obligations, as perceived by an employee, is termed psychological contract violation (PCV) and is purported to have negative consequences for the employee and the employer. This article explores the impact of feelings of perceived vi...

International law enforcement have noted a rise in the use of the Dark Web to facilitate and commit sexual offenses against children, both prior to and since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study presented here therefore aimed to investigate the characteristics and behaviors of anonymous users of Dark Web platforms who were suspected of eng...

Objective: With COVID-19 came a range of public health measures that impacted people’s routine activities. According to routine activity theory, these could affect the rate and nature of crime. This has largely been examined with volume crime (e.g., burglary, robbery) or crimes committed in the home. Stranger sex offenses greatly vary in nature and...

Abstract This paper reviews the crime linkage literature to identify how data were pre-processed for analysis, methods used to predict linkage status/series membership, and methods used to assess the accuracy of linkage predictions. Thirteen databases were searched, with 77 papers meeting the inclusion/exclusion criteria. Methods used to pre-proces...

We report an investigation of the neural processes involved in the processing of faces and objects of brain-lesioned patient PS, a well-documented case of pure acquired prosopagnosia. We gathered a substantial dataset of high-density electrophysiological recordings from both PS and neurotypicals. Using representational similarity analysis, we produ...

Why are some individuals better at recognising faces? Uncovering the neural mechanisms supporting face recognition ability has proven elusive. To tackle this challenge, we used a multi-modal data-driven approach combining neuroimaging, computational modelling, and behavioural tests. We recorded the high-density electroencephalographic brain activit...

Analytical professionals working in criminal justice and in social media companies are exposed to aversive details of traumatic events. Albeit indirect, exposure in these roles is repeated and can be extreme, including exposure to material containing lethal violence, sexual assault, and serious self-harm, leading to post-traumatic stress disorder a...

Background: There is extensive literature on front-line officers and investigators exposure to trauma and its negative impact on them. However, there are analytical practitioners in law enforcement who indirectly work with the traumatic experiences of other people daily, but are seldom the focus of academic research. Objective: Our goal was to cond...

Criminal Justice Personnel (CJP) in policing, security, and justice organizations are exposed to a variety of hazards. These hazards include negative interactions with members of the public, e.g., due to distrust (Adams and Buck, 2010; Can et al., 2018), and interactions with distressed individuals (Schrever et al., 2022). They may encounter aggres...

Sexual violence (SV) is a widespread public health and human rights problem, with countries in East Africa having higher rates than the global average. Prosecutions of SV in East Africa are rare, and survivors face many challenges accessing medico-legal justice and services. Developing initiatives that support survivors in navigating the criminal j...

Spiking is the covert administration of substances (e.g., drugs, alcohol) to another person without their knowledge or consent. This can be an act on its own or be followed by another offence (e.g., rape or robbery). This presentation outlines the findings of a literature review on the prevalence of, and motivations for, spiking. Drawing on literat...

We aimed to identify the neural computations underlying the loss of face identification ability by modelling the brain activity of brain-lesioned patient PS, a well-documented case of acquired pure prosopagnosia. We collected a large dataset of high-density electrophysiological (EEG) recordings from PS and neurotypicals while they completed a one-b...

Comparative Case Analysis is an analytical process used to detect serial offending. It focuses on identifying distinctive behaviour that an offender displays consistently when committing their crimes. In practice, crime analysts consider the context in which each behaviour occurs to determine its distinctiveness, which subsequently impacts on their...

Professionals in analytical and secondary investigative roles are exposed to violent material on a daily basis with full immersion in the details of serious offenses. However, there is limited evidence of the impact of this on their mental health. Therefore, this research aims to explore the impact of traumatic material on the mental health of thes...

Why are some individuals better at recognising faces? Uncovering the neural mechanisms supporting face recognition ability has proven elusive. To tackle this challenge, we used a multi-modal data-driven approach combining neuroimaging, computational modelling, and behavioural tests. We recorded the high-density electroencephalographic brain activit...

Objective: During the present pandemic, emerging literature argues that front-line officers’ mental health is at greater risk whilst performing their duties. However, little is known of the impact on the work of professionals in analytical/intelligence roles in police, law enforcement and justice organisations. Therefore, this study explored the im...

Crime linkage can be a useful tool in the investigation of sexual offenses when other, physical evidence is unavailable or too costly to process. It involves identifying behavior that is both consistent and distinctive, and thus forms an identifiable pattern through which a series of offenses committed by the same offender can be distinguished. Whi...

Studies have shown that it is possible to link serial crimes in an accurate fashion based on the statistical analysis of crime scene information. Logistic regression (LR) is one of the most common statistical methods in use and yields relatively accurate linking decisions. However, some research suggests there may be added value in using classifica...

Knowing how humans differentiate children from adults has useful implications in many areas of both forensic and cognitive psychology. Yet, how we extract age from faces has been surprisingly underexplored in both disciplines. Here, we used a novel data-driven experimental technique to objectively measure the facial features human observers use to...

Previous studies of the geographical and temporal features of serial sex offenses are limited by small samples and/or geographical areas, and are dated. We address a significant gap in the literature by investigating the temporal and geographical proximity of the crimes of 402 serial stranger sex offenders in the UK. Periods of incarceration were e...

Knowing how humans differentiate children from adults has useful implications in many areas of both forensic and cognitive psychology. Yet, how we extract age from faces has been surprisingly underexplored in both disciplines. Here, we used a novel data-driven experimental technique to objectively measure the facial features human observers use to...

Background When child sexual exploitation material is seized, digital forensics analysts are required to manually process all “unknown” digital material by determining (a) whether a child is present in the image, and (b) whether the image is of an indecent nature (i.e., illegal). Objective The aim of the present study was to (a) assess the reliabi...

Purpose The Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System (ViCLAS) is a computerised database which is used by law enforcement in several countries to find potential links between serial violent crimes. In 2012, Bennell, Snook, MacDonald, House and Taylor identified a number of assumptions that must be valid for these computerised systems to be effective....

A key issue facing cybercrime investigations is connecting online identities to real world identities. This paper shows that by combining the Fringe‐P3 method with a concealed information test, we can detect a participant’s familiarity with their own email address, thus connecting their real world identity to their online one. Participants were sho...

Individual differences in human vision are ubiquitous, but poorly understood. Here, we aimed to understand the neural dynamics and representational code underlying outstanding visual processing abilities. We recruited 15 “super-recognizers” (SRs; individuals in the top 2% of face-recognition ability spectrum) and their matched-controls. Participant...

This research report explores the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on patterns of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in Kenya. The research entailed conducting interviews across the 47 counties of Kenya, including in informal settlements, to document sexual violence and other violations of adults and children during the COVID-19 pandemic. The...

This research report explores the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on patterns of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in Kenya. The research entailed conducting interviews across the 47 counties of Kenya, including in informal settlements, to document sexual violence and other violations of adults and children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ther...

The study examined two approaches to Inter-rater reliability of the ERG 22+; it examined research reliability, which tested reliability in ‘research’ conditions between expert raters, and field reliability which tested reliability among practitioners using the measure in the field.

Objective: Violence perpetrated by groups has been proposed to result from processes that include deindividuation, instrumental responses to victim resistance, and leader–follower dynamics. Here we compare the explanatory merit of these accounts by analyzing the sequential patterns of behaviors that occurred in 71 accounts of multiple perpetrator r...

Crime linkage has been the subject of increasing attention in academic research. Research has found support for the principles of behavioural consistency and distinctiveness, which underpin crime linkage, but this does not provide direct evidence as to whether crime linkage is useful in practice. This literature review draws together documentation...

In this paper, it is argued that the psychological contract (PC) could provide rich insights into the understanding of employee and employer relations within the police and the stress and wellbeing of officers. Eighteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with active, full-time police officers and these were analysed using framework analysis....

Purpose – Negative emotions resulting from the broken promises by the organisation or employers, as perceived by an employee are called psychological contract (PC) violation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between perceived feelings of violation, work-related stress, anxiety and depression. Fairness and self-efficacy are...

As the first qualitative study of its kind, this study explored firefighters’ beliefs and experiences about the psychological contract between themselves as employees and their employer, workplace stress, stress-management strategies, and their wellbeing. Eleven interviews were conducted with active firefighters from multiple fire stations in the U...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the views and opinions of offender supervisors and offender managers regarding the sequencing of interventions for prisoners in England. More specifically, the research aims to gain an understanding of any barriers to implementing desired practice. Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interv...

There is little empirical research examining the reasons behind multiple perpetrator sexual offending. A limited number of studies provide reasons for offending offered by perpetrators of this type of sexual violence, but only one published study exists where these perpetrators were interviewed regarding their offense. The Multi-Factorial Model of...

The need to be responsive to the individual needs of offenders in issues relating to program delivery is noted by the Ministry of Justice as being of importance to effective rehabilitation of offenders. The aim of the current research is to explore the views of offenders in the United Kingdom regarding issues relating to rehabilitative processes in...

The focus of this planned research is the way in which external victim blaming from all levels of society can be internalised by women who have experienced rape and sexual assault. These damaging victim blaming messages have been shown to affect the way the woman sees her own experience. It seeks to explore the relationship between a woman experien...

Although multiple perpetrator rape is a relatively under-researched area, a few authors have proposed theories to try to explain this complex phenomenon. The majority of these theories only examined some factors that are believed to play a part in multiple perpetrator rape (e.g., socio-cultural factors and group processes). The most recent and comp...

Purpose: To test whether geographical, temporal and Modus Operandi (MO) crime scene behaviours can be used to support behavioural case linkage (BCL) with crime series that contain several different types of offence. Methods: Crime scene data relating to 749 solved commercial burglaries and robberies were extracted from the databases of the Metropol...

A systematic review of the reasons why detained adult offenders fail to attend or successfully complete treatment programme(s) was conducted. An initial search of the literature identified 2,827 articles, which following evaluation against explicit inclusion/exclusion criteria and a quality assessment was reduced to 13 studies. Extracted data from...

Assessing an offender’s risk level is important given the impact of criminal behavior on victims, the consequences for the offender, and for society more generally. A wide range of assessment tools have been developed to assess risk in offenders. However, the validity of such tools for female offenders has been questioned. We present a systematic l...

An increasing amount of research has been conducted on crime linkage, a practice that has already been presented as expert evidence in some countries; however it is questionable whether standards of admissibility, applied in some jurisdictions, have been achieved (e.g., the Daubert criteria). Much research has assessed the two basic assumptions und...

The aim of this study was to examine expectations about victim and offender behaviours during stranger rape. These expectations were compared with the empirically derived data of actual victim and offender behaviours. Furthermore, three attitudes/beliefs were assessed in relation to these expectations: rape myth acceptance, gender role attitudes an...

In response to concerns regarding the rise in female juvenile violent crime and the dearth of gender-specific research, this study aimed to identify predictors of violent offending in female offenders. Data were extracted from risk assessments of 586 male and female juvenile offenders (aged 11-17 years) conducted between 2005 and 2009 by the Youth...

There are investigative advantages to being able to determine early in a police investigation whether a rape has been committed by a serial or a one-off rapist. Previous research has found some differences in the crime-scene behaviors of serial and one-off rapists; however, this research suffers from the limitation of utilizing a sample of rapes wi...

The number of published studies examining crime linkage analysis has grown rapidly over the last decade, to the point where a special issue of this journal has recently been dedicated to the topic. Many of these studies have used a particular measure (the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, or the AUC) to quantify the degree to...

The area of Offender Profiling generates a lot of interest in both the academic field and the everyday world as a result of a few highly prolific cases (e.g., Jack the Ripper, Boston Strangler). Historically, profiling has been based on intuition and experience, but as the field has matured, the need to be more scientific in approach has led to the...

Despite a growing recognition that the sequence in which rehabilitative interventions are delivered to offenders may impact the effectiveness of a set of interventions as a whole, relatively little research has been carried out to provide evidence to substantiate such claims. A narrative literature review was conducted to identify and analyze resea...

The effect of number of perpetrators involved in multiple perpetrator rapes on offense characteristics is underresearched despite beliefs that duos/dyads differ in their interactions and dynamics to groups of 3+ members. We analyzed a national sample of 336 allegations of completed and attempted rape of female victims from the United Kingdom. Rapes...

Several research studies have reported an elevated level of aggression in rapes committed by multiple perpetrators compared to rapes committed by lone suspects. Several factors that have been linked to elevated aggression in generic samples of rape were examined for the first time with a sample of multiple perpetrator rapes. Factors that might be a...

This chapter highlights the need for a clear definition of the term Multiple Perpetrator Rape (MPR) which can be used across studies and countries. It also emphasizes the need to separate out MPRs from lone rapes which will enable a better understanding of the problem. It demonstrates that MPR is an international phenomenon which is present in many...

Offender behaviour is used to distinguish between crimes committed by the same person (linked crimes) and crimes committed by different people (unlinked crimes) through behavioural case linkage. There is growing evidence to support the use of behavioural case linkage by investigative organisations such as the police, but this research is typically...

Much previous research on behavioural case linkage has used binary logistic regression to build predictive models that can discriminate between linked and unlinked offences. However, classification tree analysis has recently been proposed as a potential alternative owing to its ability to build user‐friendly and transparent predictive models. Build...

Case linkage involves identifying crime series on the basis of behavioral similarity and distinctiveness. Research regarding the behavioral consistency of serial rapists has accumulated; however, it has its limitations. One of these limitations is that convicted or solved crime series are exclusively sampled whereas, in practice, case linkage is ap...

Serial rapists have the propensity to cause harm to a significant number of victims, meaning that they are of concern to the police as well as to treatment providers. Despite the serious nature of their offending, there are surprisingly few studies that provide information regarding their characteristics, the types of victim they target, or the nat...

In this study the authors assessed a Good Lives model (GLM) approach to sex offender treatment and compare it to a standard Relapse Prevention program. The comparisons examined (a) attrition rates, (b) treatment change in areas targeted in treatment and achievement of a posttreatment treated profile, and (c) views of offenders and facilitators. The...

Research with both the general public and members of the criminal justice system reports a pervasive rape myth of a violent offender and a physically resistant victim. Despite research being conducted on victims’ postrape behavior, few studies have examined victim behavior during sexual assaults, and many of those which have been conducted have ten...

This thesis was completed by Dr Tracy Lavis in 2012 for her ForenPsyD. I had the pleasure of supervising this research. The full text of the thesis can be downloaded for free from: https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/3745/

Sexual offences by multiple perpetrators are more violent and involve more severe forms of sexual violation than those perpetrated by a lone offender. Often a clear leader exists within these groups. Questions have been raised as to the relative risk of reoffending and the potentially differing criminogenic needs of leaders and followers. However,...

Research with both the general public and members of the criminal justice system reports a pervasive rape myth of a violent offender and a physically resistant victim. Despite research being conducted on victims' postrape behavior, few studies have examined victim behavior during sexual assaults, and many of those which have been conducted have ten...

In the absence of forensic evidence (such as DNA or fingerprints), offender behavior can be used to identify crimes that have been committed by the same person (referred to as behavioral case linkage). The current study presents the first empirical test of whether it is possible to link different types of crime using simple aspects of offender beha...

Whilst prison bullying is a well-researched form of aggressive behaviour, recent studies have suggested that there may be discrepancy between how prisoners and researchers understand the term ‘bullying’. Interviews with 26 female prisoners were subject to constant comparison framework analysis. More than 150 themes were identified. These suggested...

Whilst case linkage is used with serious forms of serial crime (e.g. rape and murder), the potential exists for it to be used with volume crime. This study replicates and extends previous research on the behavioural linking of burglaries. One hundred and sixty solved residential burglaries were sampled from a British police force. From these, 80 li...

Evidence about a suspect's behavioural similarity across a series of crimes has been presented in legal proceedings in at least three different countries. Its admission as expert evidence, whilst still rare, is becoming more common thus it is important for us to understand how such evidence is received by jurors and legal professionals. This articl...

The last decade has seen increased concern regarding the sexual offences committed by young people. In line with this concern is an interest in developing an empirical research base that can help identify typologies of juvenile sex offenders and, in turn, direct resources. The current study investigated whether youths who sexually offend against ch...

Geographical profiling is an investigative methodology sometimes employed by the police to predict the residence of an unknown offender from the locations of his/her crimes. The validity of geographical profiling, however, has not been fully explored for certain crime types. This study, therefore, presents a preliminary test of the potential for ge...

Traditionally, research on offender profiling has investigated the relationships between offender behaviour and offender characteristics. However, evidence about offender behaviour is not the only evidence available at a crime scene. This study extends previous collaborative research between forensic scientists and psychologists (e.g. Bond & Sherid...

Personality psychologists have suggested that the context of a behaviour should be considered in studying behavioural consistency. They have operationalised this as studying ‘if (situation)–then (behaviour)’ contingencies and have demonstrated an association between situational similarity and behavioural consistency. Previous research of behavioura...

Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leicester, December 2008. Awarded 23 October 2009. The first chapter of the thesis critically reviews the research on juvenile violent and sexual offending and highlights the heterogeneity of such offenders in terms of those that persist and those that assault different ty...

This study investigated the involvement in bullying, the psychological distress, and the coping strategies of 99 males in an English young offenders institution. The Direct and Indirect Prisoner Behaviour Checklist (DIPC; Ireland, 199824. Ireland , J. L. 1998. Direct and Indirect Prisoner Behaviour Checklist (DIPC), Lancashire, , UK: University of...

Purpose . This paper is concerned with case linkage, a form of behavioural analysis used to identify crimes committed by the same offender, through their behavioural similarity. Whilst widely practised, relatively little has been published on the process of linking crimes. This review aims to draw together diverse published studies by outlining wha...

This chapter begins by explaining the purposes of linking crimes committed by the same offender and what case linkage can add to a police investigation and prosecution. The various steps involved in the process of case linkage are explained. The assumptions of behavioral consistency and inter-individual behavioral variation, which case linkage rest...

Jaccard has been the choice similarity metric in ecology and forensic psychology for comparison of sites or offences, by species or behaviour. This paper applies a more powerful hierarchical measure - taxonomic similarity (s), recently developed in marine ecology - to the task of behaviourally linking serial crime. Forensic case linkage attempts to...

Understanding factors that affect the severity of a juvenile-stranger sexual assault has implications for crime prevention, and potentially, the assessment and treatment of juvenile sex offenders. This study investigated how victim characteristics and the number of suspects affected the use of physical violence and weapons and the occurrence of pen...

Case linkage, the identification of crimes suspected of being committed by the same perpetrator on the basis of behavioral similarity, and offender profiling, the inference of offender characteristics from offense behaviors, are used to advise police investigations and, in relation to case linkage, have been admitted in legal proceedings. Criteria...

Investigative linguistics, that branch of forensic linguistics which assists investigation, has tended to concentrate on authorship analysis of written texts (see Grant and Baker, 2001; McMenamin, 2002), speaker identification (Rose, 2002; Yarney, 2001) and disputes of meaning and use (Shuy, 1993, 1998). The first two of these presume that there ar...

Case linkage, the linking of crimes into series, is used in policing in the UK and other countries. Previous researchers have proposed using rapists’ speech in this practice; however, researching this application requires the development of a reliable coding system for rapists’ speech. A system was developed based on linguistic theories of pragmati...

More than a million people in the UK have a learning disability. A small but significant proportion of these people will come into contact with the criminal justice system because they have offended or have been accused of an offence. This article reports on the perceptions of police officers toward this potentially vulnerable group and their knowl...

Previous studies of the characteristics of juvenile sex offending have been restricted to clinical samples (with convicted offenders undergoing treatment or assessment), which have several inherent limitations. To overcome these limitations victim allegations made to the London Metropolitan Police, UK, in 2001, of sexual assault by juvenile strange...