3.1.1 Forensics - Top down and Bottom up profiling Flashcards
What is offender profiling?
- Behavioural and analytical tool intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown criminals
What is the main aim of offender profiling?
The lower the list of enquiries and list of suspects
What is the modus operandi?
- A particular way of doing something i.e. how an offender commits a crime
What is top down profiling?
- Starts from a general classification of the crime scene and a profiler uses this to make judgements on how likely the offender would fit the circumstances (classification to data)
- Based on evidence from the crime scene, offenders are classified as organised or disorganised (pre-existing templates the FBI developed and informs the following police investigation
The top down offender profiling approach is based on what idea?
- Based on the idea serious offenders have signature ways of working (modus operandi) that correlates with a set of social and psychological characteristics
What is the top down approach also known as?
- Typology approach: offenders are classified into types
- Intuitive application of profiler’s prior knowledge as they have a feel on the person who has committed the crime
What is an organised offender?
- One who shows evidence of planning, targets the victim, and is socially and sexually competent with higher than average intelligence
Characteristics of an organised offender
- Plans crime in advance
- Victim deliberately targeted
- Offender has a type
- Little evidence left at scene
- Married and may have children
What is a disorganised offender?
- One who shows little evidence of planning, leaves clues and tends to be socially and sexually incompetent with lower than average intelligence
Characteristics of a disorganised offender
- Little planning
- Spontaneous offence
- Crime reflects impulsive nature of offence
- Body still at scene
- Lives alone and relatively close to scene
State the 4 stages in the construction of an FBI profile
- Data assimilation
- Crime scene classification
- Crime reconstruction
- Profile generation
Construction of an FBI profile: data assimilation
- Profiler reviews the evidence including photographs, background info on the victim and details of the crime itself
Construction of an FBI profile: crime scene classification
- Based on the data collected, the crime is classified as organised or disorganised
Construction of an FBI profile: crime reconstruction
- Hypotheses in term of the sequence of events, behaviour of the victims, etc are created
Construction of an FBI profile: profile generation
- Hypotheses related to the likely offender e.g. physical characteristics are constructed
- Helps to work out a strategy for the investigation to catch the offender
Top down approach AO3
- Evidence for a distinct organised type / no evidence for disorganised
- Only applies to particular crimes (reveal important details about the suspect)
- Too simplistic (behaviours are not mutually exclusive)
What is bottom up profiling?
- Profilers work from the evidence collected from the crime scene to develop hypotheses about the likely characteristics, motivations and social background of the offender
- Data driven
What is investigative psychology?
- Matches details from the crime scene with statistical analysis of typical offender behaviour patterns based on psychological theory
What is the aim of investigative psychology?
- Establish patterns of behaviour that are likely to occur across crime scenes
- Helps to develop a statistical database which acts as a baseline for comparison
- Details of the offence can then be matched against the database to reveal important details about the offender e.g. personality, history
What are the three main features of investigative psychology?
- Interpersonal coherence: the way an offender behaves at the scene inc. how they interact with the victim, may reflect their behaviour in everyday situations
- Time and place: indicates where they live or work
Forensic awareness: certain behaviours reflect awareness of police techniques
What is geographical profiling?
- Based on the principle of spatial consistency - people commit crime in a limited geographical space / means inferences about an offender’s operational base and future offences can be made on the geographical location of previous crimes
Geographical profiling - assumption
- Repeat offenders will restrict their work to geographical areas they are familiar with
- Understanding spatial patterns provides a ‘centre of gravity’ which includes the offender’s base and help to guess where they are likely to strike next (jeopardy surface)
Geographical profiling: Canter’s circle theory
- Pattern of offending creates a circle around offender’s home base
- Distribution of offences lead to offenders being the marauder or commuter
Geographical profiling: marauder
Operates near their home base
Geographical profiling: commuter
Likely to have travelled a distance away from their usual residence
Geographical profiling: spatial decision making - how does this benefit the investigative team?
Gives them important insights into the nature of the offence inc. if it was planned or opportunistic or offender’s mode of transport
Bottom down approach AO3
- More objective and scientific than top down (AI)
- Applicable to a wide range of offences
- Can lead investigation in the wrong place if taken too literally
