Expressive and Instrumental Offending

Abstract

Although previous research into specialisation has been dominated by the debate over the existence of specialisation versus versatility, it is suggested that research needs to move beyond the restrictions of this dispute. The current study explores the criminal careers of 200 offenders based on their criminal records, obtained from a police database in the North West of England, aiming to understand the patterns and nature of specialisation by determining the presence of differentiation within their general offending behaviours and examining whether the framework of Expressive and Instrumental offending styles can account for any specialised tendencies that emerge. Fifty-eight offences were subjected to Smallest Space Analysis. Results revealed that a model of criminal differentiation could be identified and that any specialisation is represented in terms of Expressive and Instrumental offending styles.

Expressiveness and Instrumentality of Crime Scene Behavior in Spanish Homicides

“…The first step of the analytical strategy was to use nonmetric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) with the R statistics software (package ‘smacof’) [49] to test the hypothesized two thematic structures in terms of instrumentality and expressivity, 49 variables reflecting the characteristics of the homicide, the modus operandi of the offender, and the characteristics of the offender and victim (Table 1). The nMDS is an exploratory data analysis technique that represents the correlations between variables as distances in a bidimensional map, it is based on the supposition that the underlying structure of the homicide will be more easily appreciated if examining the relationships between all of the variables simultaneously [14,37,50]. Thus, this procedure provides an overall view of the relationships between all of variables, where the proximity of these indicates the frequency of joint appearance and thereby, similarity [51], permitting analysis and interpretation of the psychological processes underlying the homicide [5,51,52].…”

“…The consistency hypothesis refers to the similarity between the delinquent’s behavior when committing a crime and his/her every day, normal behavior [12]. So, for example, the works of Trojan and Salfati [13] and Youngs, Ioannou, and Eagles [14] have followed this line of study.…”

“…Numerous studies have demonstrated the utility and effectiveness of this model for establishing a homicide typology and for linking these typologies with aggressor characteristics using a multivariate methodology on samples from distinct countries and cultures. Some of the most relevant works have been conducted in Belgium [31,32], Korea [33,42], the United States [13,30,34,43,44,45], Finland [36,37], the United Kingdom [14,27,28,40], and Serbia [29].…”

Crime location choices: A geographical analysis of German serial killers

“…This suggests that both groups of serial murderers are possibly subjected to the same factors that influence their spatial behaviour and that they do not constitute subtypes. However, it has been reported (Youngs, Ioannou, & Eagles, 2016) that specialisation is represented through expressive and instrumental offenders, although if this relates to geo-behaviour remains unclear. It would be useful to examine the criminal narratives of these two groups of offenders as has been successfully applied in other studies (Ioannou, Canter, Youngs, & Synnott, 2015;Ioannou, Canter, & Youngs, 2017 Yaneva, Ioannou, Hammond, & Synnott, 2018).…”

Exploration of Crime-Scene Characteristics in Juvenile Homicide in the French-Speaking Part of Belgium

“…There are several other implications regarding the distinction between expressive and instrumental offending characteristics. These range from developing prevention and intervention strategies through to offender rehabilitation programs (Youngs, Iaonnou, & Eagles, 2016).…”