7.1 Forensics - Offender Profiling Flashcards
Offender Profiling
Behavioral and analytic tool used to help predict and profile characteristics of unknown criminals
Copson (1995)
Stated that you needed to know Age, gender, future threat level and so on to use offender profiling
The American (FBI) Approach to offender profiling (Top Down)
Starts at the crime scene. Police try to establish certain characteristics of the crime such as if it was organized or disorganized, then leading to a hypotheses and a police sketch
Data assimilation
data gathered from the crime scene about exactly what happened, photos are looked at along with forensic evidence and police reports
Crime Scene Classification
Decision made regarding whether criminal is organized (Planned crime) or disorganized
Crime reconstruction
Hypotheses generated about what probably happened like victim behavior and the sequence of events.
Profile Generation
sketch of criminal drawn
Organised offender crime scene characteristics
Removal of DNA, Disposes of body, specific way of killing e.g. using rope to stop a struggle, making it easier to clean
Organised offender personal characteristics
Well respected, Clever, manipulative, skilled, follows media coverage of crime, has issues with anger and or depression
Disorganised Offender crime scene characteristics
Heavy DNA present, body still there, no or little restraint
Disorganised offender personal characteristics
Lives alone, near the crime scene, sexually or socially inadequate, unskilled, abused, confused and scared after attack
Strengths of the top down approach
- Real life applications as it is successful in identifying offenders of certain crimes by identifying patterns in past crimes which makes crimes easier to solve thus positive on the economy
- Robert Ressler interviewed 36 criminals gaining qualitative data, this is good because…
Limitations of the top down approach
- Vulnerable to social desirability and leading questions
- Based on subjective opinions
- Reductionist – Reduces crime down to simple factors like organized and disorganized, increases the likelihood of a wrongful conviction because this may be wrong
- Small sample
- Made in the 70’s, lacks temporal validity and may be outdated
- Androcentric
- Criminals that do not fit into characteristics can easily get away
The British Approach (Bottom Up)
Starts with nothing and uses evidence form the crime scene and victims to establish similarities and build a profile using psychological theory, much more data driven. Establishes patterns on behavior. Allows for specific details to be gathered and entered into a database to gather important behavioral factors and look for similarities between other pre-existing criminals.
Investigate Psychology
Statistical analysis of typical offenders and theory.
Interpersonal Coherence
Assumes offenders will deal with their victims in day to day life. Their behavior may indicative of prior criminal experience
Geographical profiling
Helps locate the criminal’s location and when or where they may attack next if at all. Looks at the timing and location of a string of offences to make judgments about where the criminal may live. The offender is most likely to operate close to home
Centre of gravity
The offender base, usually in the middle of a string of crimes suggesting where the criminal may live
Strengths of the British approach
- Useful in catching unsolved crimes e.g. the Railway rapists and murderers. Canter asked to make a geographical profile which whittled the number of suspects down from 2000 to just 2. Means better use of police resources etc.
- Lundringan and Carter (2001): Collected info on 120 murder cases involving US Serial killers. Analysis revealed spatial consistency in the behavior of offenders. Found 87% of offenders were based near the center of gravity. Good for the economy
- Works for multiple crimes to locate crimes form murder to burglary as it allows for the focus in a certain area.
