Watch Bone Collector.
Next, write your comment. Your comment does not need to provide an overview of the movie (we have all seen it). Your comment should be an in-depth analysis of the elements of the movie that relate to psychology and law, particularly evidence collection. You should use scenes and characters to provide examples of textbook/lecture concepts.
The Bone Collector is a movie about a serial killer who cops, Denzel Washington as Lincoln Rhyme and Angelina Jolie as Amelia Donaghy, try catching together by putting together pieces of evidence from previous crimes in hopes of preventing the next one from occurring & tracking down the culprit.
Upon entering the scene of the crime, Amelia's job is to identify, collect, analyze, and interpret any kind of evidence left behind. This process describes forensic science, which is applied to connect evidence to an individual in order to identify who was involved. There were multiple forms of evidence collected in the movie: photographs, objects left behind like tools and bones, weapons, restraining devices, and newspaper clips. In one crime scene, there was hair left behind which they then did a DNA test on & identified as rat hair. Because of the unique nature of the evidence left behind, it did not take long for the investigators to figure out that the crime scenes seemed staged. They analyzed the visual evidence, crime scene evidence (actual materials), Amelia's memory evidence, and documentation evidence from previous crimes committed.
The examination and analyzation of the evidence involved many areas of psychology including sensation, perception, attention, cognition, and social influence. The way that Amelia (and the other investigators following) observed and mentally processed the scene was affected by her own perception and attention. Cognitively speaking, all of the police officers involved had to manipulate the evidence to make sense of it & think outside the box to try to figure it out. Since they were working as a team, social influence was definitely a factor.
Although there was a lot of evidence involved, it cannot be overlooked that the evidence might not even be good evidence. It could have been contaminated or misinterpreted. However, Rhyme addressed this issue & designated Amelia as the first one to enter the scene because he knew how good of job she did on the first case under bridge train tracks. While Amelia did do a very careful, thorough job following the rules & regulations of the law, the psychology of emotions came into play towards the middle of the movie when she was influenced by the rush of emotions seeing the dead woman handcuffed whose hands she was instructed to saw off by the wrist. Rhyme insisted her to complete the task, but Amelia's emotions trumped, causing her to leave the scene.
terminology used:
forensic science
visual, crime scene, memory, and documentation evidence
sensation, perception, attention, cognition & social influence
emotions
This movie was both entertaining and slightly more grotesque then I expected but it contained a lot of things relating to what we’re talking about in class and what is described in the book. The first thing that I noticed as kind of a side note is that Crime Scene investigation must be relatively new because even though the movie is older it’s not that old and it doesn’t suggest that the NYPD have a crime scene investigation department. That surprised me a lot.
The second thing I saw interesting related to the text was that the procedure that Donahue went through when collecting evidence from the crime scene related a lot to the procedures that we read about in the CSI handbook. During every one of the crime scenes officer Donahue made sure that she surveyed the scene for her own safety and looked around quite thoroughly before doing anything with the victim and of course before touching anything that may be considered evidence. Lincoln kind of did all the crowd control for her when telling everyone that she would be the first one to go in and only when she said it was ok would everyone else be allowed in.
I found it very annoying when, in the beginning of the film Donahue was doing all she could to protect the crime scene (something that ultimately led to the chase of a serial killer) but she was put down for it because it disrupted the train system.
One of the most interesting parts about the movie to me was when detective Cheney used forensic identification (something that Lincoln hadn’t even touched on before that) to try to match the fingerprint to the killer. This technique obviously didn’t work and was a really good example of how what people think of as rock-hard evidence can come out to be falsified. It brings up the good question that though you want to trust everything the crime scene offers for you, you can’t always trust everything you find when using forensic science. We also learned what confirmation bias looked like when looking at when Cheney discovered that the prints were a match. He started listing off characteristics of the matched man to make it seem like it could be completely plausible that this man committed all of these murders. He made sure to mention that the man had a violent background and several past arrests, all things that just led to his conclusion that this man was a killer. He didn’t think to look at any other aspects (such as that this man had a job in an auto shop) that may make him look less like a killer and more like a bystander.
They talked a lot in the chapter about how sometimes experts aren’t always right and although jurors don’t always do this they should always take the opinion with a grain of salt. That is not to say that the experts aren’t experts but the movie goes to show that when you make a testimony in a courtroom you are effecting many lives and sometimes the things that are said can have serious consequences. It was surprising to me that Lincoln had such a big impact on the case but he never once saw a picture of the man that he may be convicting with his statements. Now you never want bias in a courtroom but I would think it would be something obvious that is given to any expert or anyone who is making testimony.
I think the movie exaggerated the ease of a lot of things in the criminal justice system. Such as getting prints back from a lab we learned could take weeks and needs to be carefully analyzed before coming to a conclusion. In the movie Cheney seemed to get the results on the prints back almost instantly. There was also the question about how much flexibility a team like they had in the movie could actually have, such as moving their whole operation to an apartment building to accommodate one member of the team.
Although this movie was interesting I thought it was odd, considering how movies usually end, that they didn’t actually get any closer to finding out who killed all those people in the movie. Instead they just saved Lincoln when the killer decided to oust himself in pursuit of his ultimate goal, to kill Lincoln. During no part of the movie did anyone have any real suspects or interview anyone that may be related to the crime.
Terms: crime scene investigation, evidence, victim, forensic identification, forensic science, confirmation bias, testimony
My first impression of this movie was that it was going to be scary. I later found out that it was more grotesque than anything. However, the movie did exhibit many key items relating to both psychology and law.
Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie) is the first officer to report at the crime scene shown at the beginning of the movie. She did what seemed typical of an officer arriving at the scene, such as assess the scene. I found it odd that she didn't have a camera on her and that she had to have the little boy present go and get for her. This scene aligns fairly well with the CSI handbook that we read for Tuesday. She didn't contaminate the scene and she also kept outsiders away from the evidence. For example, when she stopped the train. Also, once the boy returns with a camera, she takes several pictures of the crime scene. One thing that I found to be really interesting was the fact that she used a dollar bill to assess the size of the perpetrator's foot. I'm not sure if that is true to real life situations, but it was still a good strategy nonetheless.
Once Amelia starts working for Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington) she finds herself in the heart of the crime. They later find out that the perpetrator had kidnapped the wife of the man found in the first crime scene. In this scene I actually found several things that could relate to psychology and law. For one, it took a lot of internal motivation for Amelia to go into the cave to search for the body in the first place. Then, once she found it, Lincoln told her (via a communication device) that there were three essential places to look for evidence, up and side to side. Again, I'm not sure if this is true in real life or not. It didn't really align with the CSI handbook.
Amelia was also told to cut off the wrists of the dead body. This played on her emotions so much that she couldn't do it. We later find out that her dad committed suicide and she had found the body. This brings up a lot of elements related to psychology. Finding a dead body can be traumatizing in and of itself. With this being her dad, it was much more traumatizing. She could have had a problem with cutting off the body's wrists because she didn't want it to traumatize her and eventually lead it to end her own life. I say this could happen because that is something she will have to deal with the rest of her life. It could be traumatizing for anyone to be in that situation regardless of their past.
One aspect of the law I noticed was when Amelia stole Captain Howard Cheney's (Michael Rooker) piece of evidence. Cheney could have easily pressed charges for stealing evidence, given that that is highly illegal activity. That scene was not very accurate to real life.
Finally, in order to track down the perpetrator, Amelia had to memorize numbers and follow a story book. This obviously plays on memory and how well people are able to memorize facts. Amelia's memory helped her remember Rhyme's police badge number. She eventually realized that the killer was after him so she went to "save" him. I kind of found that to be a little unrealistic. It pretty much the classic Hollywood ending. Someone always comes to the rescue to kill the bad guy and save the good one. However, as well all know, this rarely happens. I also found the number memorization to be somewhat unrealistic. There are many people that are good at remembering things, but there are limitations. The scene where she is playing all of the numbers in her head just didn't seem possible unless you are a genius.
I feel like the movie, in general, reflected what the public wants to see related to crime. There wasn't as much detail shown in the movie as there was listed in the CSI handbook. At the same time, however, the movie did play on emotions fairly well. There were a lot of things that I found to be related to psychology.
Terms used: CSI, crime scene, memory, trauma, and emotions.
In the movie “The Bone Collector,” Denzel Washington’s plays a character by the name of Lincoln Rhyme and Angelina Jolie plays a character by the name of Amelia Donaghy, and throughout this movie the two characters collaborate to track down a serial killer.
Throughout the entirety of this movie, many elements of both psychology and law are represented. The different psychological elements that I witnessed within this movie are the following: social, personality, sensation, perception, and cognitive.
Social: The social element of psychology was evident in the way that Amelia was influenced by Lincoln to step out of her comfort zone to take the job of analyzing the crime scenes of the serial killer head on. Amelia typically worked in the youth division until Lincoln selected her to be the first person to step onto the crime scenes that the serial killer created and use all five senses in developing an analysis of each scene, as well as, collecting the evidence available.
Personality: The personality element of psychology was evident in the way that Amelia stood her ground when her beliefs were against those of the others that she was working with. She was a tough woman who was shaped by the emotional experiences that she had been through due to finding her father, an ex-NYPD officer, following his suicide. Amelia’s strong-willed personality helped her work well on a team of men who underestimated her abilities. On the other hand, Lincoln’s calm, supportive, and encouraging personality helped to keep Amelia’s head in the right place when she would examine the crime scenes. In collaboration, both of their personalities working together helped to conduct a thorough investigation throughout the movie.
Cognitive: I believe that both Amelia’s and Lincoln’s cognitive abilities were put to the test and succeeded when manipulating the collected evidence in order to figure out the mind and tactics of the serial killer. It was obvious throughout the movie that it takes a clear and strong mental state in order to work on a forensics unit and to be able to examine evidence to quickly come to a conclusion. Although, I’m sure a lot of the abilities of the forensics unit comes from experience as well.
Sensation and Perception: Both of these elements of psychology go hand in hand throughout this movie. These elements were seen most evident when Amelia would come onto a crime scene and Lincoln would have her describe every little detail using all five of her senses. Although, Amelia’s use of both sensation and perception from the very beginning at the crime scene of the husband near the railroad tracks is what landed her the position for assisting in tracking down the serial killer. For example, Amelia’s successful job of collecting evidence in the way that is described in the CSI Handbook by trying not to disturb the scene of the crime, looking for evidence such as footprints, and by documenting collected evidence through photographs. At the first crime scene of the husband, Amelia used the element of sensation by detecting the stimuli such as stopping the train to preserve evidence. Amelia also used the element of perception, as well as, forensic identification in order to analyze the collected trace evidence such as the oyster sand, newspaper clipping, and the bolt in order to piece it all together to figure out how and why the crime was committed, as well as, where the next crime might be committed. At the second crime scene in the steam room, Amelia used the elements of sensation and perception when walking Lincoln through her descriptions of what she saw saw, what she felt, and what she smelled. Lincoln described to Amelia how the crime scene should be perceived as 3-D, the floors, the walls, and the ceilings which helped Amelia to look for evidence to collect. All in all, perception and sensation play a huge role when processing a crime scene and they are very important when collecting evidence. For example, in order to collect the evidence that Amelia did such as the hair follicle from the rat and the bones from the humans you have to be able to thoroughly examine and perceive the surroundings, as well as, think clearly in order to properly collect the evidence so not to contaminate it in any way such by using protective gear such as baggies and gloves.
Overall, I thought this movie was great! This movie clearly represented the elements of psychology and law. I had never seen this movie before, and now I would have to say it is one of my favorite crime and mystery movies!
The first time I saw this movie I didn't know what I was in store for. I loved it, but that was years ago. The second time I watched this movie was in class on Tuesday, but we didn't finish it so I'm going to definitely rent it sometime soon to finish it.
I think this movie was a great example of what we've been talking about in class and what we've read in the textbook. The movie started off right away with examples of collecting evidence. The first scene I'm going to refer to is when Amelia stopped the train so that the train wouldn't disrupt any evidence. She then found a foot print in the rocks and noticed that could it be potential evidence. She used a dollar to lay next to it to show the size of the footprint and then proceeded to take a picture of it. This reminded me of reading the CSI handbook and what order you need to do things to preserve the crime scene. It was very helpful to read the CSI handbook before watching the movie. Also, later in the movie I specifically remember when Amelia was down in the tunnel looking for Lindsey Rubin's body, Denzel told Amelia that there were three dimensions of a crime scene. The three dimensions were the floors, walls and ceilings. I thought that was interesting because I never thought of a crime scene like that. Amelia had to make sure to check all the possible areas for evidence.
I'm doing a little backtracking when I say that,since Amelia was the first officer on the crime scene she had to use sensory psychology at the crime scene to notice any smells, unusually motions or any potential evidence. One form of evidence Amelia found at the initial crime scene was a hand. Since she found a hand, they can trace the DNA. DNA are strands that are tightly coiled and carries the genetic instructions for all living cells. In other words, they would be able to find out who's hand it was. And if they're lucky there might be finger prints of the murder on it.
I believe that all law enforcement officers, detectives, investigators (ect.) need to have reliability as a high priority. Reliability is being highly consistent in measuring or observing anything that has to do with the crime scene or evidence. Validity is also very important when it comes to a crime scene. Officers need to make sure they are measuring what they need to measure.
This movie is also a very good example of forensic identification because it uses pieces of psychical evidence to trace everything to an individual.
When Amelia went back down into the tunnel after Mrs. Rubin had died, she said it smelled awful and that she didn't find any footprints but did see Mrs. Rubin's body. At this point, I think Amelia's cognitive psychology was really shaken up. You could just tell by the look at her face how it was affecting her. That's something that not just anyone should have to work with. There was also a moment in the movie when Denzel's character was really concentrating on the case and his bio psychology was really breaking through. He started to sweat profusely, he got upset, and his blood pressure was rising. I think this movie tide in great to what we have been discussing in class and reading in our textbook.
Terms: CSI handbook, crime scene, evidence, sensory psychology, reliability, validity, DNA, fingerprints, bio psychology.
Having no background information about The Bone Collector, I was not surprised when it was specifically related to the information regarding crime scene evidence that we have been discussing in class. Though it was little more gruesome than I had anticipated, I believe that it did a decent job at demonstrating the protocol that officers must follow while investigating a crime.
First and foremost, Officer Donaghy applied her knowledge about collecting crime scene evidence as soon as she recognized that she was dealing with a homicide. She took note of her surroundings, making sure that the scene was safe for her, the bystanders, and the evidence. She called for backup and got access to a camera so that she could immediately document the evidence before any of it could be altered. Luckily, she noticed that there was an article of evidence on the train tracks, so she did what she could so that the train couldn’t destroy it. Though she was later criticized for stopping the train, I believe that it was the right thing to do so that the evidence was preserved. An interesting touch to her strategy was taking a picture of a shoe print next to a dollar bill so that the shoe size could be determined more easily. To me, this demonstrated cognitive thinking on her part.
After her precision was noticed by Lincoln Rhyme, she begins to work for him to solve this case. While she was reluctant and insecure in her abilities at first, she finally agrees and acts as Rhyme’s eyes and ears at the crime scenes. On her first assignment, Donaghy seems to follow the correct guidelines when collecting the evidence at the scene of the wife whose husband was initially found buried by the train tracks. She goes in by herself to check the scene. By doing so, she is checking that it is safe for her and fellow officers before everyone enters the scene. It should be noted that she checks the scene before she starts looking for evidence or assesses the victim’s state. Once the scene is safe, she collects the hard, physical evidence, such as the bone. However, when Rhyme instructs her to cut the hands off of the woman, in order to collect the handcuffs, she breaks down emotionally and runs out of the crime scene. This is the point where we learn about her suicidal father, also a police officer. Donaghy is afraid that she might end up following his footsteps and taking her own life. This plays a part in the psychological aspect of the movie because not only is suicide a mental issue, but the emotional instability of Donaghy is incredible noticeable. In addition, sensation and perception definitely come into play when entering a crime scene. They have to be completely alert and aware of their surroundings as to not miss out on any crucial evidence. Officers must be able to detect any smells in the area, as well as noticing anything out of the ordinary. Rhyme told her to perceive the scene as 3D; walls, floors and ceilings. This helped Donaghy report back to him everything that she noticed about the crime scene.
There were a couple of particular incidents that I thought did not follow along with the proper crime scene protocol. I believe it was the second crime scene that Donaghy investigated, and there was a man whose corpse was being eaten by rats. After ensuring that the scene was safe, she tried to get the rats to scatter off. When throwing a rock didn’t distract them, she shot a rat that was in the rafters. I feel as if that would be contaminating the evidence at the crime scene. Also, Donaghy stole evidence that belonged to the case after she was taken off of the case. This is illegal and could have gotten her into a lot of trouble. I find it hard to believe that a police officer that is well aware of that would continue to compromise evidence anyways. Another incident that caught me off guard was when Donaghy noticed the number at the abandoned train station and tried to remember where it was from. Though it definitely relates to psychology in regards to memory, I found it a little farfetched that she would be able to run through so many numbers in her head and actually remember that it was Rhyme’s badge number. I commend the person that could do that in real life, but it is highly unlikely. Especially since she had only recently met Rhyme and wasn’t completely familiar with his badge number.
In addition to the aforementioned psychology related to the film, I feel as if there was a lot of psychology that played along with the staged evidence. While it took cognitive thinking to be able to stage the evidence, it took a lot more to be able to look into the evidence to find out the next crime scene. Hard, physical evidence, such as the bone, newspaper, fingerprints, and rat hair can only get you so far. Because the staged ‘evidence’ was merely clues for the officers to find the next scene, and not directly related to the victim itself, it took a lot of cognitive psychology for the officers to piece together the clues. Though it was too late for the innocent victims, Donaghy’s quick-wits lead her to the home of Rhyme, where she was able to stop the perpetrator before he could kill Rhyme, which was his ultimate goal.
Even though the movie did have some aspects that weren’t exactly criminally and psychologically accurate, it was a great demonstration of the protocol that comes along with crime scene investigation, as well as how it relates to psychology.
Terms: evidence, investigation, cognitive, memory, emotional, suicide, homicide, perpetrator, sensation, perception.
In the film The Bone Collector there are many different psychological and law terms that connect with what we have discussed in class so far. Some psychological terms are Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, cognitive/memory psychology, behavioral/motivational psychology, and sensation and perception. The law terms that were used within this film are Forensic science, source attribution, inclusion, excluded evidence, qualitative statements, psychometrics, and actions following the CSI Handbook.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is not clearly defined in the movie but it can be assumed that Lincoln experienced this (or at least Acute Stress Disorder) from his accident that caused him to be paralyzed and to have random seizures. In the scene where they are trying to locate the third victim shown (the boyfriend among the rats), Lincoln’s heart rate begins to rise. As he’s trying to gather clues to the location, everyone around him is warning him to slow down and he reacts angrily and frustrated with tears streaming down his face. We know he’s frustrated from his accident (the very first scene in the movie displaying him finding himself then awakening in fright as it was just a dream) through is aggressive reaction, which shows he has been strongly affected. Also, when Lincoln discovers that Amelia’s father committed a firearm suicide (which most likely explains why she believed forensics wasn’t her area), he confronts her about it and as she cries it is obvious she has been strongly affected as well by her father’s accident.
Cognitive/memory psychology is displayed throughout The Bone Collector by Lincoln’s long-term memory when he remembers facts about buildings, dates, and the symbol. Eddie uses his long-term memory also by claiming that feces can actually turn to nitrate over time, which eventually leads them to the slaughter house to find the boyfriend. At the end of the movie, Amelia uses her eidetic, or photographic, memory to figure out how she knew the numbers 78499 that the murderer had placed in a building by the loading docks. She finally pictures Lincoln’s badge number she saw earlier in the movie, leading her to save his life in the end.
Behavioral/motivational psychology is shown through Amelia as she bravely enters the crime scenes, such as: removing the rocks from Mr. Rueben’s dead body, entering the steam-engine rooms to find Mrs. Rueben’s body, entering the slaughter house to find the boyfriends body covered in rats, as well as pulling out the dad and little girl from the water. Amelia’s motivation to do so helps save one victim in the end, the little girl. Another character in the movie that definitely had motivation was Richard, the serial killer. He was motivated to kill and receive revenge on Lincoln from suffering six years of torture in prison as a former cop.
Sensation and perception was mostly portrayed through Amelia since she was the one entering the crime scenes and handling the collection of evidence. At the beginning, Amelia senses to remove the rocks from Mr. Rueben’s face to make sure the body is all there, stops the train to keep the evidence from being contaminated, takes pictures to preserve the evidence, and tries to locate Mrs. Rueben by hearing faint cries and senses that she is in the other side of the building. At one scene, someone knocks on Amelia’s door and when she answers no one is there until she hears noises within her apartment that cause her to sense she might be in danger and smartly draws her gun. When Richard first walks in his apartment, Lincoln also displays his use of sensation of danger at the end of the film by pressing the emergency bed button as well as trying to use the phone secretly to call for help. Throughout the movie, Amelia’s perception of these crimes can be interpreted as being warm and protective for when she sees the victims bodies’ she cries and feels remorse for them, but keeps doing what she needs to in order to help their cases be solved. When she refuses to cut off Mrs. Rueben’s hands, I took this as her perceiving that to be too immoral for the victim’s body parts to be removed. Amelia shows this through her compassion yet eagerness to fight for what she believes.
Forensic science is basically what The Bone Collector is about. Amelia, Lincoln, and even Eddie all are involved with forensics throughout the film. Amelia does most of the collecting of evidence while helping Lincoln interpret it as Eddie analyzes the specifics (such as the ‘sand’ being oyster shells and the ‘human bone’ actually being a cow bone)
Source attribution is made between the victims by the killers striations on all the bodies found and Lincoln putting together Mr. Rueben’s and Mrs. Rueben’s murders through the time and date left by the killer. The newspapers, broken fingers, and other evidence (iron nail, cow bone, oyster shells) all allow inclusion of the evidence to be gathered since they all connect. Lincoln makes a strong qualitative statement at one point when he and Amelia look at pictures of previous victims (that Cheney couldn’t figure out) by automatically knowing these victims match up due to the evidence scene in the pictures. No individuation occurred (such as fingerprints, etc.) of the killer because like Amelia said while warning Cheney about the fingerprints found on the matchbox, “He’s too smart for that”. Evidence was excluded, by Cheney of course, after using psychometrics to retrieve the fingerprints found on the box. When finding the person who matched the fingerprints, Cheney was proven wrong by Amelia for it was just another victim.
Amelia strongly follows the CSI Handbook throughout the film by checking the crime scene areas, collecting evidence with gloves and special crime scene equipment to keep the area clean from contamination (such as other cops like Lincoln mentions at one point), checking for footprints, and taking pictures. Although I found it somewhat odd she did not have a camera on her at the beginning of the film, I found it ended up being useful to lure the young boy away from the crime scene.
Terms: Post-Traumatic Stress, cognitive/memory, eidetic memory, long-term memory, behavioral/motivational psychology, sensation and perception, forensic science, source attribution, inclusion, individuation, excluded evidence, pscyhometrics, qualitative statement, CSI Handbook
This is the first time that I have seen The Bone Collector and I thought that it was a really good movie! I loved the suspense, and I enjoyed tying in concepts from lecture and the textbook to the movie.
There were multiple scenes throughout the movie that depicted elements that relate to psychology and law, particularly evidence collection. In the very beginning of the movie, Angelina Jolie, who played the role of a cop named Amelia, got called to go check out an area by the railroad tracks. She was the initial responding officer, so when she arrived at the tracks she first spoke to the boy who called in to the police station. He was a bystander, and a possible witness to the crime at hand, so she had him stick around the scene. Next, the boy pointed Amelia to an area where a hand was sticking up from under some gravel. She approached the area and dug out some gravel to find that a dead man was buried. She noticed that his finger was cut all the way through to the bone, and there was a wedding ring on the finger. She then surveyed the rest of the area for other evidence, and she took pictures of what she collected for documentation. She then heard a train approaching on the tracks, so she signaled the train to stop so that it would not ruin the crime scene or contaminate any evidence.
When the rest of the investigation team arrived at the scene, Amelia briefed them on what she had seen and the steps that she had gone through. Next, they closed the area off so that outsiders would not intrude on the crime scene. Forensic identification and forensic science was used to analyze the evidence and put the pieces of the puzzle together to try to figure out who the perpetrator was.
Later on in the movie, after Amelia started working with Lincoln Rhyme, she was told to go in first to assess another crime scene, which was most likely a crime committed by the same perpetrator as before. She entered the scene and collected evidence and evaluated the area, and then Rhyme instructed her to cut off the dead woman’s hands to collect the shackles that were binding her wrists. She was already feeling a bit insecure and unsure of herself, so at this point, psychological aspects can definitely be seen as Amelia’s emotions come out. She has a sort of breakdown. She began to cry and she left the scene of the crime. Her emotions also showed when Rhyme brought up what happened to Amelia’s father. She also cried during that part of the movie, and it made a whole lot more sense why she could not deal with cutting the dead woman’s hands off. It would have been too traumatizing for her at that point.
Throughout the movie, the perpetrator continuously set up his crimes in similar ways. They all seemed to have an underground theme, and he always left different forensic clues, such as bones, pieces of old paper, bolts, and hair. As Amelia collected all of this evidence, she had to use her instinct to lead her on the right path to try to solve the crimes.
Many other psychological aspects related to the movie as well. For example, Amelia, as well as all of the other investigators, had to have strong cognitive abilities to follow what the evidence told them and to try to find the perpetrator. They had to use their mental and thinking abilities to figure out what the evidence meant and what their next move should be. Memorization also played a large role in the movie. At the very end, Amelia saw a number at the scene of a crime that would lead her to the next possible victim. She had to think back and remember where that number was from, and she realized that it was Rhyme’s badge number. Therefore, she knew to go to Rhyme’s house to help him if he were in danger, which he definitely was. Personality psychology was also evident in the movie, especially with Amelia and Rhyme. They are both stubborn and strong-willed people, and they even talk about it for a little bit together. This type of personality, especially for Amelia, probably fueled her fire in terms of being a female cop on an all-male team. The right kind of personality is definitely necessary for that kind of position. Finally, sensation and perception both played large roles in the movie. Amelia had to use every one of her senses to assess crime scenes and evidence. She walked Rhyme through each scene so that they could collaborate together and use what Amelia had sensed to figure out what it all meant. Rhyme assisted her in perceiving what she had sensed.
Although this movie was pretty true-to-form to the CSI Handbook, I noticed that there were some things that would never fly in a true crime scene investigation. For example, when Amelia stole the evidence from the head investigator on the case, if that were in real life she would have been severely punished for tampering with crucial evidence. Also, since Rhyme was not technically working as an investigator anymore, I thought it was weird that they allowed everyone to set up equipment at his home and run the investigation from there so that he could be a part of it. I understand that he was a huge help in helping solve the case, but I feel as though that would never happen in the real world.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with this movie. I hope that all the rest of the movies to come are just as interesting and as applicable to psychology and law as this one was!
Terms: evidence, witness, documentation, crime scene, investigation, forensic identification, forensic science, perpetrator, emotion, instinct, investigator, cognitive, memorization, victim, personality psychology, sensation, perception, CSI handbook
The Bone Collector is a very good movie to relate to the first few weeks of class and the material that we have gone over during that time. The main characters played by Angelina Jolie and Denzel Washington. Washington plays a forensic expert who, because of an accident, had become a quadriplegic. Losing all ability to move in one's lower body as well as most movement in their upper body would probably cause them to suffer from depression. Jolie plays an up and coming officer who happens to be the first responding officer to a murder scene. She already has probably suffered from depression or other psychological issues of her own due to the fact that her father, who was a cop, had committed suicide. At each murder scene that she finds, she stays pretty true to the things that we learned in the CSI handbook. When investigating murder scenes, since Washington's character is paralyzed, he has Jolie communicate a scene to him over the radio. Having to describe grisly murder scenes over a radio would take some mental toughness, I'd think. A couple examples of following the CSI handbook would be stopping the oncoming train in order to try to leave the scene as it was when she found it. Also at the first site, she saw a footprint which reminds me of a real serial killer in the 1980s where they used footprints to track him down. Richard Ramirez aka the night stalker wore a distinct type and size of shoe, and they kept record of prints they found. Near the end of the movie, we learn that with each murder that the perpetrator has committed, there was a clue left behind. No one had noticed up until that point. Again, this means that only with due diligence, future murders or assaults can be prevented. At the end we find out that the killer is Richard, who is a medical tech. This supports what we learned in class that oftentimes the criminal that we are looking for is in fact someone we already know.
Not ever seeing the movie ‘The Bone Collector’ prior to this assignment I was unaware of what to expect. Though the movie was a bit more graphic that I anticipated, it did intrigue me and showed a relative portrayal of the steps crime scene investigators take to collect and analyze evidence from a crime scene.
Close to the movie’s beginning the character Amelia Donaghy, played by Angelina Jolie, comes across a crime scene she believes to be a homicide. Right away she secure the sight by stopping the subway to make sure no evidence in jeopardized. Donaghy also takes pictures of the evidence and uses the dollar bill to get an accurate measure of the shoe print left behind. These actions reminded me of the procedures we read about in the CSI Handbook.
A second crime scene that Donaghy is asked to investigate is the one with the female victim underground. Lincoln Rhyme, the main character played by Denzel Washington walks her through the necessary procedures, he first asks her to tell him what she sees and smells. It seems using one’s senses to first describe a crime scene is an effective way to start looking for pieces of evidence. Rhyme makes a good point by stating that crime scenes are three-dimensional, the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. By paying attention to every part of a crime scene the investigator has the greatest chance of getting as much evidence and answers that they can from their surroundings. Doughy walks in a straight line in order to avoid and footprints left by the perpetrator, and pays attention to the ways that he tied up the victim. Again she shows proper procedure by taking pictures of the scene as well as collecting and bagging the bone and hair left at the scene of the crime. Rhyme asks her to obtain the shackles used to tie the victim’s hands in order to gain trace evidence, including the fingerprints that may have been left behind.
The last crime scene in the movie also relates to psychology and law. Like the two prior scenes, Donaghy is asked to investigate the scene to obtain the evidence left. Again she uses her sight and sense of smells to describe the scene to Rhyme. He states that only she needs to go in first because there are five basic contaminants to every crime scene, number one being police officers. She does not take pictures at this scene, however she does obtain a matchbox with a fingerprint that is returned to the police station and ran through the system to find a match.
Though the movie somewhat accurately portrays the steps that a crime scene investigator would take, such as taking photos or bagging evidence, there are a few flaws. First, in real life there would most likely be a team of experts that investigate the scene in order to analyze every piece of evidence as well as have different ideas of what occurred at the sight because every person might not see the exact same thing. Also, the amount of time taken, both to investigate the scene and analyzing evidence through the lab can take months. The film makes it appear as investigators and police offers can search a crime scene and identify evidence quickly, but in reality this takes much more time to ensure accuracy.
This film does provide examples of different types of psychology that affect the characters, and how they obtain and view the evidence at the crime scenes. Cognitive Psychology plays a large role in the way that Donaghy recognizes and is able to label evidence, this includes sensation, perception, and cognition. Sensation was used by Donaghy when using her five sense to first describe the crime scene, and sensation and perception were used by Donaghy and Rhyme in figuring out what exactly the evidence was and putting a label on it. Social Psychology also contributes in the way the she was able to push herself to investigate the scene of the crime even though she had difficulty because of her father’s suicide, which she discovered as a child. Lastly, Personality Psychology was also represented in both main characters. Donaghy was a strong and driven character, which allowed her to be able to investigate the crime scenes, even when emotionally overcome by what she saw. Rhyme also was a strong personality but his sympathy and encouragement toward Amelia allowed them to connect and work together to solve these crimes.
Overall, I think that the movie did a good job in portraying what a crime investigator does without loosing the storyline or excitement of the film. Though not every piece of the movie was completely accurate, I believe that it did explain the thoughts and procedures that investors follow as well as how psychology plays a large part in their job.
Terms: Crime scene, evidence, homicide, CSI Handbook, trace evidence, fingerprint, Cognitive Psychology, sensation, perception, cognition
What an intriguing movie! The Bone Collector provided many theatrical elements that were relevant to real life as far as crime scene goes. It was interesting to watch Amelia go through the emotions, and then the forensic analysis that comes along with collecting evidence from a crime scene.
Many elements of psych came into play during this movie.
Social Psychology: Both Lincoln and Amelia displayed tremendous acting in this department. Socially, they were investigating. Amelia at the actual crime scene, and Lincoln cognitively, due to his disability. It was amazing to watch Denzel guide Jolie through each investigation and help her take the proper steps to complete the investigation in the manner it needed to be.
There were many personalities in this film. Most of them being serious, with a twinge of humor sprinkled here and there. The personalities blended very well in order to solve each crime as they happened. The investigations were not only thorough, but had parts of the CSI handbook incorporated in, making this film a lot like real life. The forensic science that went into this film was uncanny. Once Amelia knew what she was doing, she was an expert at collecting, preserving, and showing evidence.
Clinical Psychology: Although gruesome, I found the "bone collector" intriguing. What would drive a human being to commit such acts? I determined that the perp was suffering from some sort of anti-social personality disorder or was a sociopath. The perp showed agression, and a total disregard for others and human life. The perp lured his victims in, and showed no mercy when it came to the horrendous killings. The perp followed a trend as he lured in his victims, and also murdered them in similar ways.
Many parts of psychology came into play and worked together in this film. That coupled with the legal side proved to be on lengthy investigation. Lead after lead, law enforcement followed the perp, the ending was a twist, and provides suspenseful, on the edge of your seat conclusion.
There were many elements of crime in this film including kidnapping, torture, stalking, murder, and so on. These crimes were the base of the film, and made it possible for Amelia to become an expert in forensic crime, something she already had a natural gift for.
Amelia's perception of the crime was a huge part of the movie. Had she not had the talent, and been able to perceive the crimes correctly, as well as the evidence, there's no way that the mystery would have been solved. I feel that the biggest part of the psychology aspect was the perception of the legal team, which proved to be both valuable and relentless, leading them right up to the perpetrator.
The second biggest psychology aspect was the sensation. Sensation is essential to a good investigation, and allowed the law enforcement to sense the stimulus. The sights, sounds and smells started to have a pattern as they moved from one victim to the next. As they noticed this trend, the place, and how the murders were performed were more easy to predict. Without the prediction of the law enforcement, this case could have never been solved.
I was pleased with the Bone Collector and felt that it was both factual, and realistic. The acting, script, and the writing of the film was also excellent. Overall a great film, and a more or less accurate description of what goes into forensic science and law.
Terms: Sensation, Perception, Social Psychology, Perpetrator, Victim, Forensic Science, Personality,
Clinical, Socio-Path, Anti-Social Personality Disorder, CSI Handbook, Evidence, Emotion
The movie Bone Collector was very interesting and made my stomach feel upset in a few spots, and all the actions leading up to the end involved many different parts of law and psychology.
Richard Thompson, played by Leland Orser, was the least suspecting person throughout the whole movie till the end as being the criminal because you rarely ever saw him, and he was just so friendly to Lincoln Rhyme, who was played by Denzel Washington, whenever he was at Lincoln’s place. I believe what the movie, and possibly the book, but I have not read it so I don’t know, was getting at with the criminal is that yes it most likely can be someone that you know of who is the one causing a criminal act which was mentioned in class. Richard had tried making himself known to Lincoln on who was committing the crimes since he knew that Lincoln read the book Bone Collector so he copied the criminal actions in the book. While Richard was going to kill Lincoln he started telling Lincoln a tiny part of his back story, and when he made the comment “do you know what happens to a cop in prison?” I believe that through social psychology he became the way he did. Many statistics point out that just a normal person going to prison for a simple crime will change because they have to do whatever they have to just to survive not to mention Richard was a cop so that made things 100 times worse.
Lincoln Rhyme at the beginning of the movie was very happy with what he was doing, even though it was to look at dead bodies, but unfortunately a beam fell on him paralyzing him. When Lincoln was first shown paralyzed he was having flash backs of the event I described in the first sentence. Lincoln did not really show it in his facial expressions but through what he wanted done to himself it was quite apparent he had severe depression because of how his life had become and tried convincing Dr. Barry Lehman, played by John Benjamin Hickey, to help him pass on to the next life since parts of his brain were so damaged that he would become a vegetable in a matter of time which is a form of biopsychology because his psychological state at the time was affected by the accident. Amelia, played by Angelina Jolie, makes a comment about Lincoln bossing people around too much which may also be a part of the biopsychology aspect since he cannot do anything out in the field anymore he had to change his personality a bit to being more bossy and demanding of people. Lincoln also did not like the fact that people were treating him differently since he was so close to possibly having a seizure from working too hard on the case.
Amelia Donaghy’s first appearance as a cop inquired her to look over something a boy had found. Amelia finds what the boy had made the report on which was a man’s hand, with a finger skinned, and with a ring on it. She also discovers very important forensic information about the criminal and has to stop a train enforcing the conductor to not pass do to a homicide. Amelia then becomes a forensic specialist due to her actions at the railroad but this plays a toll on her emotions when things get grim on her first case. Amelia’s past is eventually revealed about her being a model at a young age, and also about her father’s suicide. I believe that her father’s death had caused a little bit of a personality change in Amelia since she went from being a model to a cop, and she could not make a commitment in a relationship. Amelia eventually starts to like what she is doing as a forensic specialist to the point that she even steals evidence to help catch the criminal.
The cops in this movie did not seem very well educated from what I understood on their thoughts of some of the forensic items found at several scenes of the crime. One scene was at the very beginning when Captain Howard Cheney did not really care about the items left behind from the criminal on the track, which Amelia had saved, that he became upset with Amelia because she stopped the train. Another scene was when the cops were searching for the wife of the first victim, but was too late to save her and the only way to get to her body was to blow a hole in the wall. Lincoln specifically wanted Amelia to go in first because the cops would have just barged in right after the hole was made to sweep the area to make sure it was clear, but their actions would have damaged all the forensic evidence. Even though most of the cops in the movie were not that good the forensic team was very outstanding on their part. The forensic team had a lot of knowledgeable and very perceptual people working on the case being able to think way outside the box and it being right.
Terms: Flash backs, depression, biopsychology, social psychology, forensics, emotions, stealing, perceptual, and victim
Bone Collector is the story of Detective Rhyme and Amelia Donaghy and their usage of crime scene forensics to try to catch a serial killer. Detective Rhyme and Amelia use techniques to preserve evidence, gather information from it, and use the information. The movie was an excellent example of crime scene forensics. However, the Captain was not supportive of the usage of forensics. He mentioned that he felt it was slowing them down. He also displayed his dislike when he yelled at Amelia for stopping a subway in order to preserve the evidence. This gives the notion that the widespread usage of crime scene forensics is fairly recent. The movie isn’t that old yet there weren’t widely accepted and used procedures for crime scene investigations. The department did have Eddie who did the science behind the evidence, which suggests that they did have regular procedures for processing evidence. They just didn’t have any procedures for processing and retrieving evidence at the crime scene.
In the scene with the death of the woman, hairs are collected from the pile of “clues.” After processing the hairs they were able to determine that they were from rats. They also process the sand from the beginning of the movie and determine that the sand is actually crushed oyster shells. Amelia used excellent crime scene investigation skills when she took pictures at the scene in the beginning of the movie along with her use of the dollar bill next to the footprint. Dollar bills have a universal size and having just a picture of a footprint is not helpful when trying to determine the size of the footprint. The dollar bill is used as a scale of measurement. It did seem strange that the entire department was working on this one case. Typically there are many other things going on at once and the department should be a little bit more spread out, at least initially. After having a couple of similar murders more resources would be put into that case. However, moving all of your resources and people into one location to work on one case was certainly a bit extreme.
The movie did display psychology as well. Each person was using cognitive psychology to try to piece together all of the information to solve the case. Each time Amelia looked at a crime scene she was using sensation and perception. She was using sensation to view the evidence and perception to determine what that evidence is and what it may mean. A scene that I found very memorable is when Amelia was told by Rhyme to saw off the woman’s arms. This is a clear depiction of emotion. We can tell she is visibly distraught by being told to do this by Rhyme because her brow slowly starts to furrow and she begins to tear up. She eventually runs out of the scene and yells at Rhyme. These are all depictions of her being distraught. In this case, her emotions interfered with her ability to complete her job. In this scene Rhymes is trying to motivate her by consistently trying to tell her what to do. However, his form of motivation doesn’t work for her.
Terms: Crime Scene Forensics, Serial Killer, Evidence, Crime Scene Investigations, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Sensation, Perception, Emotion, Motivation
The Bone Collector was a good movie containing elements from the class. The main characters are Lincoln Rhyme (played by Denzel Washington) and Amelia Donaghy (played by Angelina Jolie). Rhyme was a very good crime scene investigator who was severely injured and could not walk anymore. So he asks Donaghy to do the work for him.
Rhyme sees that Donaghy has a natural skill for crime scene investigation when she responds to a call and does a very good job at it. She followed the CSI handbook pretty well at the first crime scene she responded to. She did everything she could to preserve the crime scene by stopping the train. She stopped the train because there was trace evidence left behind by he perpetrator on the railroad track. She then does a very good job at taking photos of the evidence as they were. The victims of the crime scene were a wealthy man and his wife (who was kidnapped). The trace evidence left behind(the footprints, note, bolt, sand) by the perpetrator were clues leading to the location of the kidnapped wife. They reached the wife, but it was too late. But the perpetrator had left behind more clues (bones, hair,)
When they processed the evidence, they individualized the evidence, meaning they found out where the evidence came from and what it was. The sand in particular was actually crushed oyster shells, the bones were actually cow bones, and the hair was actually rat fur from a certain area of the city. They also processed the bullet retrieved from the first victim (the wealthy man) and found striations that matched a certain gun that the perpetrator had used. Striation are marks left on the bullet and are unique to specific caliber of gun.
I felt like the whole movie was a chess match. The killer was leaving behind clues to the next victim so he put their deaths on the investigators as much he was putting it on himself. There was a lot of psychology involved in the movie. The emotional turmoil felt by Amelia when Rhyme asked her to go to the steam mutilated body of the wife. Rhyme asked her to cut the hands off of the woman to preserve the evidence of fingerprints that may have been on the handcuffs. Amelia could not handle the anxiety anymore and fled the scene, but not after collecting crucial evidence. Her sensation and perception skills had to be very sharp to locate the specific details of the evidence. Rhyme knew she would be a good crime scene investigator after he saw how sharp her skills were after collecting evidence in the first crime scene. I feel that a clinical psychologist would be very interested in both Rhyme and serial killer. They would be interested in Rhyme in how he can figure out what the killer's next move is when no one else can figure it out. Also, the killer because what is causing the killers behavior? What is driving the killer to murder people? An abnormal psychologist would also be interested if there were any disorders with the killer that is causing him to be insane. If he were insane, he could use the insanity defense in court.
Terms: CSI handbook, evidence, trace evidence, perpetrator, victim, individuation, striations, finger prints, sensation, behavior, perception, emotion, clinical, abnormal
I like The Bone Collector as a movie, but watching it in an academic sense always puts a different spin on movies. The first thing that was evident was the differences in technology between now and then. The very next thing was that the villain of the movie should have been caught by a background check.
It comes down to the fact the villain character had a felony. He may have had a new name now, but there is paperwork that one usually has to do to switch that name and it still should have been tied to the felony which then should have been able to point to a conflict of interest in the well being of Lincoln Rhymes.
The true villain of the movie is Cheny's ineptitude. It is actually almost as dangerous as the named villain character. In no world should the M.O. of the killer been overlooked. Forget the book the Bone Collector discovered in universe, how do you miss something as blatant as large chunks of surgically removed flesh? The cops should have been all over this guy by the time the second or maybe at the very latest third killing came around(In all probability, the second killing should have been enough). The first killing that we actually see in the movie is the fifth victim. It begs the question how many far more subtle crimes have slipped past this man who calls himself a detective and wields a not insignificant degree of power within the precinct.
Licoln Rhymes(Denzel Washington) is an interesting character, mostly for the line about his hobby while he was well. The character Paul Sellitto(Ed O'Neal) explained to Amelia Donaghy(Angelina Jolie) in a car ride that Lincoln used to collect literally everything, from dirt to antique medical tools and catalog it. It explains some of the questions throughout the movie that literally don't make sense out of context, such as how from the evidence sand grit substance found at the first murder Rhymes was able to intuit crushed oyster shells before the forensic specialist. That kind of fanaticism and memory explains why the rest of the area seems to hold him as high up as they do and why they allow him to break regulations. The line that does leap out for me is There are five kinds of crime scene contamination but I'll skip to the worst one, other police officers.
Forensics is a far older practice than the movie gives credit. As far as this movie, it almost seems as if it takes place in an alternate world bereft of the science of Forensics. There's nothing groundbreaking about the theories cited and applied and apparently written by Rhyme. As far as I can tell, the movie is meant to be set in 1999. Yet, Donaghy who has fairly basic training in the discipline seems to be leagues and bounds ahead of everyone else in the movie.
I don't know that I would say that there is a lot of trace evidence throughout the movie. It's all intentionally planted clues on behalf of the killer who is god-like in his meticulousness. The only thing he didn't count on was his ability to lose a fight to a quadriplegic. I can not think of a single scrap of evidence throughout the movie that wasn't intentionally left there by the killer. In effect, they are more clues to other crimes other than actual evidence against the killer. Had Lincoln Rhymes not utterly destroyed the killer at the confrontation in this movie, he could have gone into work on Monday and it would have been less suspicious than vanishing.
What happens within the movie is kind of the opposite of what police should want to occur in crimes like this. Donaghy's withholding of the subway map that lead to Rhyme's badge number found in the subway contributes to the danger that Rhymes later faces. If the cops sent down or went with a team instead of going alone to check it out, there might have been someone able to respond above-ground quicker than her. While a large portion of the police force was probably involved in the hunt of the little girl and the grandfather, chances are there was at least one cop in the entire city that was closer to Rhyme's location than her.
Were the killer smart, he would have put the little girl and the old man as far away from the next target, Rhymes as possible. Since the murder was contingent on the tide, he had plenty of time to act, and anyone actually at the crime scene let alone exploring subway tunnels using an outdated map should have been too far away for saving purposes. Amelia should have and should have had to tap the police force and warned that there was a possible immediate threat to the former police officer.
The evidence that actually helps, that points a finger in vaguely the right direction is the bootprints. They had a bootprint. It is the only thing that wasn't necessarily intentionally left by the killer. He can't help but walk on earth. Even then, that's well done by the killer because there's no wear and tear on the treads. They're almost perfect in the print that they leave. It is about the only evidence that isn't planted by the killer. That's the evidence that they needed to be following, rather than the planted clues. At least they get the shoe he's wearing, rather than being stuck in needing to follow the clues to get to the next killings. The main team in the movie ignored literally everything else that actually was likely to point to the killer rather than the next killing.
The scene where the traffic cop is shot on an open street is also downplayed. This is another case where more evidence and actually vital evidence could have been gathered but wasn't. Somebody saw something more, they had one incidence of eyewitness testimony even though it didn't give them all that much. Chances are, somebody else also saw something. That wasn't an empty street, but there was no on screen investigation and little off the screen investigation because nothing about that scene yielded any evidence. It's something the cops should have focused on, because it in effect was not in the killer's plan. It doesn't fit the M.O., it wasn't meticulously planned and orchestrated, they had a better chance of recovering important evidence from the spontaneous killing then they ever had following the killer's planted clues crime scene to crime scene. It makes sense that a forensic expert like the villain would have been able to be mostly clean, but completely is next to impossible.
For instance, as clean as the steam murder was in the room, why didn't they investigate around the steam pipe where someone would have had to kneel down and half sever the valve using a hacksaw? At that point, the crime scene extends to that portion of the room too, but that part is ignored. It looked like he freshly bricked up that room, otherwise there should have been easier way in rather than blasting a hole in the wall. Why didn't they look into the source of the cinderblocks and mortar. They aren't everyday commonplace purchases. Companies buy in bulk and private citizens usually buy with specific projects in mind. As big as the potential suspect pool of cinderblock buyers, it is exponentially smaller than the suspect pool of everyone in Manhattan.
There should have been at least two teams of people working on this case. One to actually chase the killer, and one to chase the clues and try to save lives.
Terms
Conflict of Interest-Duties or motivations from one role in life affecting the duties or motivation of a different role.
Modus Operandi-Literal, Method of Operation. In practical, it is the steps one takes when working, basically following any manual dictating behavior is to endeavor to have repeatable work, an M.O. that can be followed. In killing, it implies similarities between one murder and the next or perhaps a uniting theme of the crime scenes that may provide context of the killer, or provide insight into his next crime.
Crime Scene Contamination-When an individual impacts a crime scene after a crime has occurred that alters the evidence that might be found. Usually results in more evidence, as removal of evidence from a crime scene tends to be held under the auspices of withholding evidence.
Forensics- Multidisciplinary science focused on discovery of, appropriate processing, and presentation of evidence for criminal court cases.
Evidence-Anything used to demonstrate the truth of a scenario. In Crime, anything that can be proven significant in narrowing down the suspect pool.
Trace Evidence-A specific kind of evidence based on transfer of small amounts of material from contact with one object to another.
Eyewitness Testimony- Evidence based on the perceptions of an individual who witnessed a crime or was near the area where a crime occurred. It is not flawless as people are not flawless, and it is some of the most compelling evidence presented. This is a double-edged sword.
Suspect Pool- All people who could have possibly committed the crime. The gathering of evidence is meant to narrow down the pool to as slim a number as possible.
I have seen The Bone Collector many times before this; however, I have never actually taken the time to analyze the content of the movie. This movie has a lot of good aspects of psychology and law and how they impact one another.
In the first crime scene of Alain Rubin’s body, Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie) is the first person to arrive at the crime scene. Amelia, as the responding officer, searched the area to make certain that she and the witness were safe, and then she proceeded to assess the crime scene. Although not a trained forensic scientist, Amelia knew, based on her training and instinct, to document and preserve the physical evidence by taking photos and, later in the movie scene, by stopping the train. Her actions were similar to those outlined in the CSI handbook. As the responding officer, she secured the scene upon arrival and ensured that none of the evidence was destroyed. I thought that it was clever to use the dollar bill, a common object, as a measuring tool to determine the size of the shoe print to document. Amelia knew which aspects of the scene were evidence and needed to be documented based on her previous knowledge of crime scenes and her ability to take in stimuli and cognitively determine their importance. However, I did find it odd that, because she didn’t have a camera on her, she allowed the only witness to leave the scene and go and buy her one, rather than calling for backup.
Due to her excellent forensic skills at the first crime scene, Amelia is recruited to help Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington) when Lindsay Rubin, the first victim’s wife, is determined missing and in danger. While Amelia, Lincoln and others are analyzing the first crime scene’s evidence, there is a hint of long term memory, when Rhyme determines where the next crime scene would be due to his knowledge of a past crime that had similar evidence which occurred in 1913. During the scene where Amelia finds Lindsay’s body steamed, I found that there were a lot of aspects of psychology at play. The first being that Amelia had to determine what was important evidence based on her prior knowledge and had to take in each aspect of the scene to process what had occurred and what the next step was. The next aspect of psychology that I noticed in this scene was the play on Amelia’s emotions, from the time that she entered the crime scene to when she was asked to cut the victim’s hands off. For many people, seeing a dead body would be an emotional and traumatizing event, however, when you take into account that Amelia’s father committed suicide and she was the one who found his body at a young age, having to repeat finding a dead body would take its toll. This not only involves her emotions, but also her memories of finding her father and flashbacks of how she was feeling after that horrific event.
After finding the third victim’s body, a college student, and processing the crime scene, Amelia is reprimanded by Police Chief Cheney who decides to take over the case. On the matchbox that Amelia found at the crime scene, a fingerprint is discovered and is identified to belong to a man with a previous violent record who works with taxis. This scene shows two aspects of psychology and how it relates to law. One facet of psychology that is shown is confirmation bias, Cheney believed that whoever’s fingerprint was on that matchbox was his perpetrator and nothing was going to change his mind. The second was a hint at criminal profiling, due to the violent record, the finger print belonged to a male, and he worked with taxis, he fit the profile of the serial killer they were looking for. Also, during this scene, Amelia steals evidence from Cheney’s desk after he leaves his office, however, she is never prosecuted for this and the fact that she steals the evidence is later dropped in the movie. This is not an accurate portrayal of consequences you would receive after stealing evidence.
The last crime scene in the movie, where the older man and the young girl are tied up to a dock, there were two significant parts that I noticed in that scene. The first was when Amelia finds the cluster of evidence that is left and Cheney arrives at the scene, she takes the evidence and puts them in her pocket. There are two things wrong with this, the first is that it is illegal to steal evidence and the second is that if that evidence were actually to be used she would have contaminated them by touching them without gloves on and then putting them in her pocket. The second significant part of this scene is when Amelia finds the changed numbers in the abandoned subway station and has to remember where she has seen those numbers before. Obviously this deals with recalling her memory of seeing Lincoln’s badge number in his home in a previous scene. Although this may not be an accurate portrayal of memory recall, it is an example of how memory can play into crime scene investigation.
Lastly, when Marcus Andrew (aka Richard), Lincoln’s specialist, reveals himself as the killer and explains his motive behind killing each of those people. This brings up the debate of whether expert testimony is always a valid form of evidence. Marcus was sent to jail for six years due to Lincoln’s expert testimony that claimed Marcus, as a forensic cop, had tampered with evidence. This scene shows the controversy behind expert testimony. Should it be used in court cases because experts cannot always factor in outside variables that may affect an outcome of any situation? In this case, Marcus claims that Lincoln’s testimony was off base and had ruined his life.
Overall, I find this movie to be entertaining and thrilling; although not all that accurate in some cases, the movie does a good job of showing the basic aspects of a serial killer investigation. The movie gives a basic outline of what police and investigators have to do in order to catch a killer, and the psychological aspects that these cases deal with.
Terms: responding officer, witness, forensic scientist, physical evidence, CSI handbook, stimuli, cognitive, long term memory, emotions, suicide, fingerprint, confirmation bias, criminal profiling, memory recall, expert testimony
Bone Collector is a movie based on a killer who prays based on a novel and is motivated by experiences from his past. The movie consists of several different areas of the department of defense, and their inter workings. It also develops several strong crime scenes. Each of the crimes contain a piece that are meant to lead the investigators to the following crime. In the end the viewers find out that the criminal commits each crime with an overall target victim in mind. Throughout the movie there are several psychological, and forensic factors to be interpreted.
The first crime scene introduces, Amelia, a cop with natural instinct for forensics. This crime scene includes key evidence. Forensic science leads us to a theory for the following crime. Amelia analyzes the crime to find a bolt, page number, and a hand with a missing finger. The page number and bolt is what lead the crime scene investigators to the following crime. This scene also shows the forensic science for finding another piece of the next crime, oyster shells. This movie showed me insight to how many people work on one particular case and of how in-depth each aspect of the crime gets analyzed. The following crime leads them to an underground building. This building contains a victim with restraints. The investigators find her before previously alive and surround until her death. Amelia enters the building following the death to collect the evidence. She finds a bone,hair,and another piece of the paper. The DNA further lets the investigators know that the hair belongs to an animal. Lincoln, the lead detective, motivates Amelia through this process. Amelia has difficulties continuing with her duties at this time, however, gets most evidence with his constant motivation. Relating to the psychological side of investigation, this scene caused uprising suspicion for how much a person can take. As a viewer, a question would be what could she have done without his motivation. She also refuses his orders to retrieve the cuffs. Mentally, she could not handle cutting the victims hands. Learning about this field in past assignments has made an impact on what type of person it takes to do this job. The CSI handbook guides each investigation to regulate how crime scenes are investigated. Each person has to maintain the same amount of quality when doing so. The movie shows her refusal as a strong point, if they let another who was trained in the field would they have gotten more evidence? There may have been forensic identification on that piece of evidence that she could not retrieve. The movie continues to show more source attribution.
Towards the end of the movie consecutive pieces of evidence lead them to a faster paced solution to all crimes. Many parts of the movie lead the viewer to a variety of suspects but the main perpetrator is unexpected. The final clue that leads Amelia to the final crime is numbers from the previous crime scene that correlate to Lincoln's badge. Lincoln’s death served as the motive for the perpetrators purpose. Many criminals want to get caught at some point. Several causes could have been relayed to our criminal such as; mental illness, circumstances, and personality. Each area could correlate to the crimes. Social influence and past experience is two main areas the gave the murderer motivation. The crime scene investigation was at large during this movie as well. The realness of each investigation gave true insight on the dimensions of a crime scene.
Overall, chapter four gave me further knowledge on crime scene investigation. The movie gave several insight and examples of key points in the chapter. This movie gave me a sense of how important the crime scene investigation is. In one part of the movie it shows that this killer has been previously killing and no simple match was made. When a crime is committed each part is a key to the mystery. Knowing the statistics for our overall state on crimes being convicted as well as reported each aspect of crime is important. This movie further interested me in the field.
Crime scene, FBI, Police, Forensic Science, victim, forensic science, trace evidence,DNA,forensic identification, source attribution, suspect, perpetrator,mental illness, CSI Handbook,simple match
The Bone Collector is a great movie, I had seen it once before this assignment but it was very interesting to re-watch it through the critical lens of psychology and law. The film focuses heavily on crime scene investigation by Amelia Donaghy (Jolie) under the direction of Lincoln Rhyme (Washington), a now paraplegic cop who was injured on the job. Both characters are somewhat conflicted in committing to the search for the serial killer, one can assume that post-traumatic stress disorder is affecting both of them. Amelia's father worked CSI and eventually committed firearm suicide, leading her away from that area of law enforcement, and Lincoln is bitter after being crushed by a large falling object while investigating a crime scene. The two overcome their hangups and work together in solving the crime.
Early in the film, Amelia demonstrated her natural talent for crime scene investigation when she is called to the train tracks where a murder had taken place. She effectively preserved and documented the crime scene, even though she lacked intricate training. She managed to stop an amtrack train in order to preserve evidence that was left on the tracks (a pile of asbestos, an old bolt, a piece of old newspaper, and crushed oyster shells). In her quick thinking, she procured a camera in order to document the evidence. She laid a dollar bill next to a boot print left at the scene and photographed it before it was washed away by the rain. She also photographed the body in the position that she found it before it was dug up and moved by other officers. An important part of any investigation is the preservation and documentation of evidence.
While she was reprimanded by the police captain for stopping the train and investigating by herself, her talents were recognized by Rhyme who convinced her to work the case. Wisely, Rhyme sends her in to investigate the next crime scene alone, knowing that other officers are likely to contaminate the crime scene if allowed to be the first on the scene. He tells her over the headset to, "remember that crime scenes are three dimensional...floors, walls, ceiling." This piece of advice is definitely a valuable one in crime scene investigation in an otherwise somewhat unrealistic plot. She follows his instructions for collecting the evidence, including bones and hair. When she is instructed to saw off the victims hands in order to obtain the shackles that may have held a fingerprint, she becomes overwhelmed and leaves the scene. This is a good example of her sympathetic nervous system in action, also known as a fight or flight response.
One thing that I found interesting about the movie was that nearly all of the evidence that is recovered was intentionally placed there by the killer as clues. Some of these are misleading, like the fingerprint on the matchbook that belonged to a different violent offender affiliated with the taxi service. I had not really considered the possibility of evidence being planted by a perpetrator himself. While it turns the movie into a fairly unrealistic kind of chess match, it was certainly an interesting element to consider.
The Bone Collector is a thrilling movie about continuous crime scene investigations while the perpetrator is still out on those loose committing more murders. Amelia, a youth services officer is put into the middle of this story line by coming across a scene of a crime, witnessing a victim buried in the rubble of an underground location. After Amelia collects excellent documentation of the crime scene (pictures, a bone, etc.)The documentation is turned over to crime investigators who show it to Lincoln, a injured cop who is very educated in crime scene investigation, memory, and forensic science.
Since Lincoln can clearly tell that Amelia not only knows CSI procedures, but has the same natural instinct for forensics as he does, he wants her to continue to investigate this fast moving act of crimes by an apparent serial killer.
I personally think that the perpetrator of these crimes is suffering from multiple mental disorders, but possibly suffering from a sadistic personality disorder, as his acts of crime seem cruel and aggressive. The perpetrator leaves trace evidence for Amelia to find, and his clues lead Amelia and Lincoln to specific places (forensic identification).
Through working with Lincoln, Amelia is told to explain her feelings and he senses, in other words, her sensations and perceptions. He wants her to follow her instincts, taking note of what she sees and smells and to make sense of it. Lincoln then uses cognition to make sense of her feelings and senses and manipulates those to figure out where the next path of the perpetrator might be.
Amelia is apprehensive about taking on this role as a crime scene investigator and continuing it, likely because she has a background of trauma, finding her father after he committed suicide. She could be suffering from PTSD, as she witnessed a traumatic incident, which might be making her apprehensive about continuing her role given to her by Lincoln. Lincoln also suffers from PTSD, as he was involved in a traumatic incident, becoming paralyzed and still suffering from emotional and mental trauma. They both have a connection due to this.
Lincoln tells Amelia that crime scenes are three-dimensional, including the floors, walls, and ceilings. I think this was an important quote not only for Amelia, but for us as students of forensic psychology and law. This tells us, just like the CSI Handbook does, that crime scenes are complex, but one must take in everything they see, preserve what they see, and document it all.
Overall, this movie was very good! I did have to cover my eyes and points and I did my fair share of jumping, but this movie clearly shows the basic processes of crime scene investigation and evidence documentation, while showing how many psychological aspects can play a huge role in not only committing a crime, but also solving a crime.
Words Used: crime scene investigation, documentation, memory, forensic science, investigation, CSI procedures, CSI Handbook, serial killer, perpetrator, mental disorders, sadistic personality disorder, forensix identification, trace evidence, sensation, perception, cognition, trauma, suicide, PTSD, witness, victim
I really enjoyed watching the movie The Bone Collector. I love the show Criminal Minds, and this movie reminded me a lot of it, just a little older version. As a viewer, you are able to see what the “good guys” cannot; therefore, you are constantly on edge waiting to see if they can figure it out. Most movies these days are based on action or creativity, whereas this movie was based around evidence collecting.
In the beginning of the movie, we’re introduced to Amelia Donaghy and her skills when she enters upon a crime scene. Amelia does a very good job of collecting evidence at this point, without any proper training as a city police officer, not an actual forensic scientist. Amelia was smart to not let either the young boy or the train disturb the crime scene. If she had let either the train or the kid walk through the crime scene, they could have disturbed the trace evidence. This is evidence that can be collected to help depict who did the crime. Trace evidence can range from fingerprints or hair to fibers from clothes left at the scene, clues which can be used to narrow down who the suspect could be and finally the perpetrator. If the train rode through or the boy walked through the crime scene, this trace evidence could have become contaminated, making it inconclusive because one could not know what the boy or train messed up. So Amelia did a very good job of securing the crime scene, making sure none of it could be disturbed.
After that, she went around taking pictures of everything, making sure that the site was well documented. As we all know, our memories can be a little fuzzy at times, so having pictures that show exactly what was where makes everything at the crime scene more usable in court. Taking pictures also helps when bagging evidence from the crime scene. If a piece of information is needed to be taken from the crime scene and processed, a picture can help show where it was before it was taken. Amelia also took pictures using comparisons. Instead of just taking a picture of a shoe print, she used a dollar bill to compare the size to.
This whole process is a very careful and meticulous. This is why I do not think I would be a good forensic scientist. It takes a certain personality to do this job, and I do not have good patience or would miss key information because I do not have patience. It is important to remember every sound, smell or sight you can at the crime scene. This is why it’s important to use sensation and perception psychology which is detected stimuli or evidence and being able to label what that evidence is. I also think that it is important to detach yourself in a way from the crime scene. In Amelia’s case, she associated the crime scene with her father’s death and that made her unable to complete the process. I think that when analyzing a crime scene, one cannot be personally connected with it. The whole thing is difficult, long, and gross in most cases and for someone to feel like they are personally connected with a victim makes them unable to complete the job to the best of their abilities, in my opinion. Amelia did a much better job at this towards the end of the film than at the beginning and was an intriguing character to watch all the way through the whole movie.
Terms: evidence collection, forensic scientist, trace evidence, fingerprints, inconclusive, personality, sensation, perception
I had never seen the Bone Collector before and I thought it was a great movie. It definitely relates to a few classes that I'm in, especially my Homicide class and of course relates to the Psychology and Law class. The movie, which is about a serial killer who leads the investigators on a wild goose chase all while leaving clues each and every time a killing occurs. The movie leads us to a lot of emotional and difficult situations for the investigators.
The movie begins with Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie) having to come up to a difficult crime scene and having to collect as much evidence as she could before the evidence would all go away because of the rain. What was weird to me about it was that Amelia didn't call any back up and took the situation into her own hands, but at least she knew what she was doing. Amelia did a great job collecting and preserving the evidence. She had the little boy who found the body go and get her a Polaroid camera so that she could take pictures. She collected evidence of the piece of newspaper, the torn page from a book, and the bolt. The man who was buried under the rocks also had is finger removed. Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington) was another key character in this story. When he seen the photographs from the crime scene he had told Amelia what great of a job she had done, and she told him that she had learned it all from the CSI Handbook. Amelia had to background experience in forensics but she knew exactly what she was doing because of what the Handbook and taught her. All of this information collected eventually led them to the scene of the crime which was an underground building where Amelia had to do her first real crime scene as she was now part of the crime scene unit. I believe that all part of the collecting and preserving the evidence is Cognitive Psychology. She had to base everything she was doing on memory and intelligence because she had really never physically done a crime scene.
During her first actual crime scene you could tell it was very hard for her, especially seeing the woman. She was the only one who was at the crime scene because she needed to collect all the evidence before everybody else came in. She collected the bone and the hair evidence and took pictures. The entire time that she is doing this crime scene, Lincoln is always right there with her taking her through each step. I think this shows us the sensation and perception of psychology. When beginning the crime scene you always had to start off with one thing before leading to the next. Each crime scene is three dimensional and that was what she started out with. The three dimensional of the crime scene was the floor, walls, and ceilings. She had to make sure that there wasn't anything else around her or something else that might help them with the crime scene. After making sure everything was clear was when she was able to begin collecting any DNA, other evidence, and taking pictures. When he wanted her to take the handcuffs off the woman, this is when Amelia refused and left the crime scene. We find out that the reason Amelia left the crime scene was that because her father and previously committed suicide and she was the one who found the body. This is an example of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). Eventually Amelia would be able to overcome this with each crime scene. I believe that another type of psychology in this crime dealt with Social. The entire time Lincoln was telling her what to do, but by the time they got to the body he kept trying to influence her to take the handcuffs off, but she finally refused.
As each crime scene went on, Amelia got stronger and stronger as a investigator. The body of the college student who had all of the rats on him was hard at first for her, but she got over that fear in order to collect the evidence. You could tell that each crime scene she was at, that she started getting more angry with them and just wanted to find the killer. Each time the killer would leave a clue with the torn book page and the newspaper clipping. Lincoln spent most of his time trying to piece together the torn book pages in order to figure out what the killer was trying to tell him. Another reason you could tell the Amelia was ready to find the killer was that she told the evidence from the cop who decided to take over the entire investigation. This stealing of the evidence led to them figuring out where the book pages were coming from. The cop thought he had the entire thing figured out where there was a fingerprint on one of the pieces of paper, but that had been set up as well.
The final crime with the older gentleman and the little girl showed Amelia's true strength and how much she had grown. She went off by herself to find them and that's what she did. Unfortunately, the old man didn't make it but the little girl did. Here is when Amelia goes and finds the key to the end of this investigation. She takes the evidence and goes down to the old subway where there were a whole bunch of numbers. Cognitive comes into play here too as well because she's trying to put the numbers together from memory and figure out where she has seen the numbers from. She eventually realizes that the number is to Lincoln's badge number and she knew he was the next target.
The end of the movie surprised me, I guess I never really thought that his specialist would be the one to do this to him, but his reason is that Lincoln had ruined his life and needed to get back at him. Luckily, Amelia shows up which leads to the killing of the specialist and the surviving of Lincoln. This honestly was a great movie, and it makes it that more interesting when looking at all the types of psychology that are found in movies. Some of the movie is kind of biased because how quick DNA would go through the system and things like that, but even though it takes a lot longer than that, the movie gives us a general idea of what an investigation is like and all the steps that are taken throughout a crime scene.
Terms used: evidence, cognitive psychology, sensation, perception, social psychology, fingerprints, DNA, CSI Handbook, PTSD, serial killer
The Bone Collector was a very interesting movie and I was extremely surprised that I hadn't heard of it before. I really enjoyed it.
The first crime scene in the movie consisted of Amelia, a police officer, being called to duty after a 911 call. When she responds, she's told that it was from under a bridge close to where she was at the time. She stumbles upon a little boy who called the police. He points to where she sees a hand sticking out of the gravel beside a train track. When she sees a train coming, she stands on the tracks and motions for it to stop. After stopping it, she then pays the boy to go buy her a disposable camera that she uses to photograph the evidence. She had an intuition of what to do when finding this crime scene.
There were several links to psychology when collecting the evidence she did throughout the movie including sensation, perception, social, and cognitive influences. Everyone involved in processing the evidence used these influences. The whole movie consisted of using sensation and perception to analyze and process the crime scenes. In every crime scene Amelia was using sensation to find evidence. For example, the second crime scene when the lady was steamed to death, Amelia was told to look around and find things that looked out of place or something they could take back to the lab and see if there were any finger prints on them. When Amelia would find these items, she would then use her perception to identify what they were. She was describing what she found on top of one of the steam pipes because she used her perception to label them. She told Rhyme's that she saw a bloody bone, she labeled that item as a result from her perception of it. She did this for the old pieces of paper she found at every crime scene as well. The social psychology plays a part in just about the entire movie. They are all included in the team, working as a team, to try to figure out who is doing this. They can influence each other in a way that helped them link all the clues together. A pretty obvious example of this is when Amelia is first told my Rhymes that he wants her to be part of the investigation. She rejects at first but is then socially influenced to do so by Rhyme's. Another would be when Rhymes asks her to cut the woman's hands off so they can see if there are any finger prints on the cuffs she is being restrained by. He was trying to socially influence her by telling her what to do but she rejects completely and walks away from the scene without doing what Rhymes told her to do. This would be an example where the social psychology in this movie did not work. When they were using the cognitive psychology, they were using their minds to manipulate the evidence mentally. For example, they were trying to figure out the pieces of paper that was left at each crime scene and how they played together. Rhymes, Amelia, and Thelma use their brains to try to fit together three pieces of the puzzle so they can solve what is going on. They used their minds to come up with an explanation and finally figured out that it was from a Gotham book about a murderer, which this serial killer is imitating to make a point.
I have seen The Bone Collector prior to this assignment. I enjoyed having to watch it though and actually tie in material with what was happening throughout the movie.
When Ameila appears at the first crime scene she took action right away. She made sure not to contaminate any possible evidence and looked every where for clues. When the train was approaching she took action to stop it on the tracks so the bolt and oyster shavings wouldn't be ruined or tampered with because they were laying on the tracks. She also had the young boy go buy her a camera so she could take as many pictures as possible. It was smart of her to lay down the dollar bill to show the length of the shoe print in the dirt.
As the movie goes on, Lincoln calls Amelia to his aid. He wanted to speak with her since she was the first eye witness of the crime scene. Lincoln asked Amelia to do the investigating for the case as she was hesitant because it wasn't her area. As they put together the first clues left at the crime scene they were successful in finding the location of the missing wife but unsuccessful on timing.
As the serial killer proceeded throughout the movie he always made sure to leave behind a clue but nothing that would jeopardize his identity. Each crime scene had to be pieced together to reach the next. This really involves thinking outside the box and researching all the possible answers.
I enjoyed the spin they added when having the matchbox relate back to a taxi driver. This could have been a way to throw off the officers or even make them realize that the perp is a taxi driver also. Which is where I feel a lot of psychology ties in. Throughout the whole movie sensation, perception, social, and cognitive psychology is being used. Every time Amelia comes across a crime scene she is using sensation and perception to pick up on clues that are visible and not visible. Once evidence and clues are gathered a lot of cognitive psychology is going on by many characters in the movie. Everyone is searching and trying to figure out what that piece of evidence means. I feel some social psychology plays in with Aemlia and how she reacts to other officers and Lincoln. In the beginning she was very hostile and hesitant toward Lincoln. As she realized the confidence he has in her she began to buy in to what he was guiding her to do. She then eventually stood up for herself and abilities to the other officers that doubted her. In the beginning of the movie she didn't stand up for herself when she was scolded for "stopping the train station" even though she knew it was the right thing to do. If she hadn't followed her gut those first two pieces of evidence may have been destroyed.
terms: crime scene, evidence, cognitive, sensation, perception, social, contaminate, crime scene, serial killer, fingerprint
The Bone Collector had several scenes and elements of Psychology and Law. Amelia’s entire task was to examine crime scenes in order to find evidence left by the perpetrator. Amelia, with the help of Lincoln, did several things which fit the protocol described in the CSI handbook. At the first crime scene, Amelia quickly secured the premises by stopping the train and asking the boy to stay where he was as well as checking to see if the victim was still alive. She also did an excellent job of preserving evidence by taking photographs before the rain ruined the crime scene.
Acting as a Crime Scene Investigator was particularly traumatic for Amelia as her father, once a police officer also, killed himself with a firearm. Because of this incident, Amelia did not want to relive the memory of finding the body of her father. She seemed to be suffering from PTSD and also had commitment problems.
Another person who may have been suffering from some psychological abnormalities, or at least severe loneliness, was Lincoln (or Linc). Lincoln’s physical state hampered his psychological state. However, he managed to pull himself together in order to try to save others. Throughout the movie, he was a huge advocate of proper evidence collection and he did not want the crime scene to be contaminated by other police officers. He told Amelia to “walk the grid” and also reminded her that crime scenes are three dimensional. Another issue Lincoln brought up when speaking to Cheney was the proper chain of custody for evidence collection. I had not heard that phrase prior to watching this movie but it is definitely important for crime scene investigation as well as court cases.
In addition to the physical evidence, Linc also explored the psychological evidence left by the killer. Linc surmised that the killer was trying to make the investigators feel as if they were responsible for the deaths because the investigators could not piece the evidence together quickly enough. Linc’s proposition definitely turned out to be right when the killer, Marcus Andrews, explained why he was going to kill Linc.
Andrews’s character addressed the issue of innocent persons being sent to prison. Whether Andrews actually committed the original crimes is ambiguous, but clearly his psychological state was altered by the experiences he had in prison. The action he took after he was released from prison border on psychotic and may be explained by behavioral psychology.
Definitions: CSI handbook, traumatic, chain of custody, psychotic, behavioral, PTSD, “walk the grid”
I have never heard of The Bone Collector prior to this class. I was kind of nervous this was going to be a boring movie but it turned out to be actually really good. I enjoyed it a lot. Denzel Washington is one of my favorite actors and I was pretty excited to see that he was in this movie.
This was a good movie to watch since what we have been talking about in class has a lot to do with this movie. Angelina Jolie also known as Amelia the cop that was first to the crime scene of the murder victim. Once she meets Denzel also known as Linc he is paralized waist down from working a crime scence and having a beam almost slice him in half. He realizes that Amelia just has a niche for taking care of a crime scene and taking good pictures. She never thought so and never wanted to do anything like that due to the fact of her fathers suicide after he was a cop. She was always scared to take after his steps so she wanted to work with youth crimes. Linc pushed her to get over those fears by telling her that everyone thinks they are born to be like their parents and follow in their foot steps but he doesnt agree. He believes that everyone is born for their own reason and to create the life that they want to live. After giving Amelia this speech she was able to get over the fact that she was scared and worked her butt off to solve this case.
Another thing about this movie that relates to psychology is how the use cognitive psychology as a team and try to solve this crime together
Amelia shows great emotion in a scene that Linc tells her to saw off the hands of the dead women so they can get prints from the handcuffs.
This movie was really good and i enjoyed watching it. It definetly proved to me that psych and law have a lot to do with each other and overlap a lot more than we may think.
Amelia Donaghy was just a regular patrol cop who happened to be the initial responding officer at a murder scene. Amelia must have been familiar with the CSI handbook because she followed the guidelines and successfully protected the physical evidence from an oncoming train. She preserved important trace evidence and impressed forensic expert, Lincoln Rhymes. Together, Amelia and Lincoln worked to figure out who the serial killer was.
Cognitive psychology was present in this film. Cognitive psychology occurred whenever Amelia or Lincoln tried to solve a problem. Cognitive psychology involves reasoning and mental processing. Amelia and Lincoln used their problem solving skills and reasoning to figure out where the next crime scene was going to be. At the crime scene, sensation and perception psychology took place. Amelia was told by Lincoln to trust her senses and be sensitive to every detail at the scene of the crime. Once Amelia relaxed and focused on her senses, she was able to find important trace evidence. Amelia’s astute perception made her an excellent forensic investigator. Social psychology was also an important aspect in the film. Amelia was troubled by her father’s suicide. She was afraid that she would follow in her father’s footsteps. Without social influence or encouragement from Lincoln, Amelia probably would not have had the courage to trust herself and become a forensic investigator. Lincoln’s personality traits made him an excellent advisor to Amelia. Personality psychology was evident in the film. I am not a personality psychologist, but I believe that Lincoln would score high in openness to experience and low in neuroticism. Lincoln was inventive, curious, and for the most part he seemed confident and emotionally stable. He pushed Amelia out of her comfort zone until she eventually became more confident in herself and open to new experiences.
I wish I could have seen the end of the Bone Collector. From what I saw in class, it was a suspenseful and interesting movie that perfectly relates to Psychology and Law.
Terms: Trace evidence, personality psychology, sensation and perception psychology, social psychology, cognitive psychology, CSI handbook, crime scene, forensic investigator
I had only ever seen parts of The Bone Collector before this week. Didn’t really remember anything about the movie except Denzel was paralyzed. The Bone collector is about a crippled former police officer and a rookie cop with serious trauma in her past banding together to try and solve the murders of a serial killer. It is a good movie but has it’s flaws. The one thing I took from this movie the most was how it emphasized crime scene procedure. It was a major focal part in the movie, something I have never really seen in a movie before.
Angelina Jolie’s character, Amelia, receives a call from dispatch that a street kid has called the police about a possible murder. She goes to check it out and finds the kid, who points to the murder scene. Amelia . immediately begins to secure the crime scene, starting with a freight train boring down on her, so that all of the evidence can be preserved and cataloged. Amelia is visibly shaken by the discover of the body and remains uncomfortable during the scene. But she toughens it out and takes many photographs of the crime scene. This is something the follows the CSI handbook loosely, but either way it gets it point across. Don’t contaminate the crime scene, document the evidence., etc. These procedures are all in the CSI handbook. Now, there were some fallacies in this movie of course. The forensics in the movie seemed to almost happen instantly; it isn’t like that in real life. In reality police officers could be waiting weeks for the tests and results are finished. Angelina Jolie’s character Amelia would also go into every crime scene first and alone. Not likely to happen in the real world either.
Looking for aspects of psychology in this movie was not very difficult. Lincoln was paralyzed and wanted so badly to die so he could avoid the chance of becoming a vegetable. It took him a while to realize that he still wanted to live and Amelia helped him with that. Amelia was a very intelligent rookie cop. The kind that was going places in her career. Instead she chose to ignore her talents and transfer into youth services, a much “tamer” field for the police officer, something Denzel’s character Lincoln referred to as career suicide. Lincoln could see the fear in her when she was dealing with dead bodies. It turned out that her father had killed himself and she was the one to find the body. Needless to say she was traumatized to the extreme and her greatest fear was that if she kept at it and saw too much, she would kill herself just like her father. Lincoln saw the fear, but he also saw her potential, so he pushed her until she began to believe in herself.
In the end, this movie does focus quite a bit on forensics, crime scene preservation, collecting of evidence, chain of custody, and mishandling and theft of evidence. This movie really correlates well with what we are currently learning, and provides good visual examples.
The Bone Collector was an entertaining and clever film. Watching Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie collect trace evidence and try to find its significance impels me to want to become a forensic expert. Once I saw how gruesome the job can be however, I think I will stick with occupational therapy.
A mass murder is on the loose disguised as a taxi driver. Once someone enters the taxi, the killer locks the victims inside and kills them in specific ways. With each killing the perpetrator mutilates the victim by retrieving one of their bones. Each victim’s death occurs during a certain period of time in which they have a possibility of being saved. Before the perpetrator leaves his victims, he leaves behind trace evidence such as bolts, pieces of paper, and more. If the team of police and forensic experts can figure the significance of the evidence, they may have a chance at saving the victim.
The first killing was a man whose body was buried with his hand and mutilated finger sticking out. Amelia Donaghy was first on the scene in which she took photos and stopped a train in order to protect the scene and its evidence. Amelia was intelligent with her photography in which she placed a dollar bill next to the shoe print to calculate its size. Luckily I saw this movie, had I taken pictures of a foot print for a crime scene, I would have never thought to place a comparison next to it.
Finger prints also played a role in the film when the police discover a print on one of the evidence found at the scene. Forensic identification occurred when the police matched the print to a taxi driver with a criminal record. Once they reached the taxi driver however he had already been murdered.
Each murder scene contained trace evidence consisting of a small piece of paper. Amelia Donaghy and Lincoln Rhyme made a source attribution in which each piece of paper is similar to each other and they all come from a common source. The small pieces of paper can be concluded as an inclusion or a match. With this discovery Amelia, Lincoln, and Lincoln’s medical helper were able to place the pieces together to form a face or a logo. The logo was from a publishing company that Lincoln had used to publish some of his books. Amelia sought out the library to discover the novel The Bone Collector. Within the novel were pictures of the same killings the serial killer had been constructing and carrying out.
In class I learned that 52% of all violent crimes are committed by someone we know. In the case of this film the perpetrator is in fact someone Lincoln knows. The perpetrator is Richard Thompson, Lincoln’s medical technician who is an ex-forensic cop seeking revenge on Lincoln. Luckily Amelia was able to make an inclusion of the numbers on an old subway car and Lincoln’s police badge number to discover Lincoln was in danger.
Overall I thought this film was interesting and unexpected. The characters in the film were intelligent and used trace evidence to make source attributions that eventually saved a little girl, Lincoln, and ultimately stopped the killer. Crime investigations such as The Bone Collector are very interesting to me and I hope to continue to learn more about them.
Terms: forensic identification, trace evidence, perpetrator, finger prints, victims, source attribution, inclusion
In class we watched part of “The Bone Collector” featuring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. Between their two characters many different aspects of psychology were displayed.
Lincoln Rhyme, the character played by Denzel Washington, displayed many different aspects of psychology throughout the movie. One of Lincoln Rhyme’s greatest abilities is to recall facts, moment, and memories. These moments were a good display of cognitive psychology because he was able to break apart a crime scene in his mind, manipulating each piece of evidence in order to discover the next clue. Such as using the number on the book page to determine a date and deducing where the large bolt originated. Rhyme also had a very strong personality. He had a keen ability to manipulate and persuade others through calm instruction no matter what was going on. This would fall under personality (his calm demeanor) and social psychology (how he could manipulate others). Aside from being a fairly calm and relaxed person Rhyme was also extremely stubborn and persistent when it came to dealing with officer Amelia Donaghy.
Amelia Donaghy, played by Angelina Jolie, is the initial responder to a murder scene and it is her work on the crime scene that united her and Lincoln Rhymes. Donaghy is then in a way taken under his wing and instructed on how to process a crime scene. With any new job comes a certain level of stress, which can lead to any number of psychological problems. After examining a gruesome scene where a woman was steamed to death officer Donaghy experiences a mental breakdown. This is something that could be expected when some is exposed to a traumatic event but it was especially frightening to have happen to Donaghy because her father had committed suicide. The suicide of a parent often has noted effects on a person and can serve as a warning sign to watch for depression or suicidal behaviors in the others involved. I believe that there were some long-standing traumas that were brought out by the murder scene.
This movie displayed a large quantity of crime related activity especially in the area of crime scene processing and evidence collection. The first crime seen, at the railroad tracks, was preserved by stopping a train that was headed towards a few pieces of crucial evidence, then allowing the police to properly process the area. Officer Donaghy followed many of the procedures spelled out in a CSI handbook like photographing the evidence, providing descriptions of the scene, and turning everything over to the responders. As the movie progressed Donaghy continued to learn more about processing a crime scene while being instructed by Lincoln Rhyme. A few of the things learned were how to collect evidence without contaminating it and to use the sense of smell as well as just looking and listening.
Overall, the movie contained many different aspects of both psychology and law pertaining to crime scene processing. It did so in a fairly accurate manner all while providing a suspenseful film.
Terms: Cognitive psych, personality, social psych, crime scene, CSI handbook, evidence
The movie, the Bone Collector, was an excellent example of Psychology and Law, and to make it even better, was also exceptionally interesting and entertaining. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect for me, probably because I’m a major nerd, was the plethora of psychological principles that can be found in the movie.
For example, the thing that stood out to me the most was Marcus Andrews’ anger and backlash over the expert opinion released by Lincoln Rhyme. Obviously, he had a right to be angry since he was put in prison for six years, but I found it odd that he placed so much weight on the expert opinion of Detective Rhyme. To add to my lack of understanding, the textbook talks about how the influence of an expert opinion should not be hugely critical to the decision making. Rhyme even told Andrews that it was a simple, scientific opinion and that he did not vilify Andrews or even conclusively accuse him. However, Andrews chose to blame and subsequently victimize him out of all the other people involved in the case. This leads me to wonder exactly how much influence an expert opinion has over jurors. In theory, the practice seems rather sound, but if one man, albeit one that is a little psychopathological, is willing to go through years of work causing much harm to other people, just in order to get revenge on Rhyme, then it goes without saying that other laymen of the law, including jurors, may give the same credence to expert opinions. Again, at first glance, this may not be a problem, but in the textbook, though it is also commonsensical, the authors talk about how some experts are simply hired guns or are giving a subjective opinion versus an objective statement of the facts. But how is a jury to know the difference? Hopefully, the role of judges as gatekeeper can be modified enough to disallow these type of expert opinions to become testimony.
Additionally, the role of Officer Donaghy reminds me of Neal Smithers from “This American Life.” Rhyme tries to convince her to become a Crime Scene Investigator, but she makes it clear she has absolutely no desire to do so. However, Paulie, someone who still works for the police department says he has the authority to give her a transfer that is not subject to her approval. When she then does start as a crime scene investigator, it is clear she has quite the intuition for it. She has had little training in that department, as she started in the Youth Services dept.. However, she has read man y of Rhyme’s books and applies that knowledge very admirably.
For example, the original scene that causes Rhyme to know of Donaghy’s capabilities showcases Donaghy’s talents. Knowing that a train running over the crime scene would damage evidence, Donaghy stops the train by standing in front of it, holding out her badge and waving at it to stop. Pretty ballsy if you ask me. Her instinct proved to be sound when she laid down a dollar by a shoe print while taking a picture to create scale. I didn’t even know what she was doing at that point. Her actions were much like the ones described by the CSI manual: Methodical, precise and calm. However, she (at least on film) never consulted the manual, so much of this was done by her own intuition. Should another officer such as Cheney, who appears to have the social need of affiliation (yupp, motivations and emotions, but thought it applied here), have appeared on the scene, much of the evidence would have been tampered with and/or destroyed. Donaghy also collected the evidence very carefully with gloves and put it in plastic so as not to compromise the evidence. Cheney made a comment in the film when they found a latent print on a piece of evidence, about how it was probably hers. I found it interesting they never discussed the level of matchings that were discussed in the textbook, so I assumed it was a simple match then.
Terms: Latent print, affiliation need, simple match,
The bone collector is a movie that dose a fantastic job of trying to make the movie as real as possible. Amelia (Angelina Jolie) Is a regular cop as opposed to a detective who dose a great job of making sure that the evidence is collected properly. If the evidence is not collected in the right way it might not hold up in court. There are many T.V. shows out there that have to do with crime scene but not many really show how the process is done. Amelia really shows what needs to be done when she doesn't pick up the bolt but actually stops the train from going through the crime scene. At first when she put the one dollar bill on the ground I thought it was to mark as number one. In the T.V. shows you see little plastic numbered markers on the ground and I at first thought that is what was she was doing. It was very impressive how she new to put the doller bill there to give a scale of how big the shoe print was. From watching this movie collecting evidence can be a very stressful job have to stop a train and then later on being asked to cut the hands off the girl. The movie really shows how important photographing everything is. I believe that is to show that the evidence was not planted so it can be used in court. What really interest me is how I think he was the captain of the police force was upset about how Amelia had stooped the train when she was trying to save the evidence you would think he would have been imprest like Lincoln Rhyme(Denzel Washington)was and every one who was trying to get him on the case was.
terms: evidence, Court, detective, crime scene, captain