5.2 Offender Profiling: The Top-Down Approach

Question 1

factors of a disorganised type offender

Answer 1

• lower IQ
• low social competence
• many clues at crime scene
• little evidence of engagement with victim

Question 2

Factors of an organised type offender

Answer 2

• high IQ
• socially competent
• planned crime may engage in violent fantasies

Question 3

What is offender profiling?

Answer 3

A method of working out the characteristics of an offender by examining characteristics of the crime and crime scene

Question 4

What is the top down approach?

Answer 4

Analysis of previous crimes creates a profile of a likely offender. Profiler relies on intuition and beliefs.

Question 5

Where did the top down approach originate?

Answer 5

With the FBI - intuitive application of profilers prior experience

Question 6

What are the 6 steps to the top down approach?

Answer 6

1. profiling inputs
2. decision process models
3. Crime assessment
4. Criminal profile constructed
5. Crime Assessment if new information
6. Apprehension

Question 7

What are profiling inputs?

Answer 7

All the data collected eg. details of crime scene, information about victim

Question 8

What are decision process models?

Answer 8

profiling inputs organised into meaningful patterns eg. murder type

Question 9

What is a crime assessment?

Answer 9

Classify offender into organised or disorganised using the information from the crime

Question 10

What is a criminal profile used for?

Answer 10

Used to plan investigation, including where to look and how to interview offender

Question 11

What is done at the apprehension stage of the top down approach?

Answer 11

If apprehended the profile generating process is reviewed to check that each stage the conclusions were legitimate. And to see how it could be revised for future cases

Question 12

Evaluate the top down approach to offender profiling (5)

Answer 12

• Is it useful? 82% of police officers questioned said yes, 90% would use it again. Also offers different perspective
• Flawed basis - based on interviews with murderers who aren’t typical and more likely to be dishonest
• Potential harm - Snook claims that the profilers are as useful as psychics and may mislead investigation
• measuring accuracy in terms of closeness of profile to actual offender is not reliable. Alison found that 50% of police rated fake (wrong) profile as accurate
• organised and disorganised profilers more likely a continuum rather than two categories

Question 13

What percentage of police officers said the top down approach was useful? how many said they’d use it again?

Answer 13

82% said useful

90% said they’d use it again

Question 14

How many police officers rated fake (wrong) profiles as accurate in a study done by who?

Answer 14

50%

Alison