Bottom - up approach

Question 1

Aim of bottom - up approach

Answer 1

to generate a picture of the offender - their likely characteristics, routine behaviour and social background - through systematic analysis of evidence

Question 2

Investigative psychology

Answer 2

an attempt to apply statistical procedures, alongside psychological theory to the analysis of crime scene evidence.
-aim is to establish patterns of behaviour that are likely to occur across crime scenes
and creating a statistical database acting as a baseline
-details to an offence can be matched against this database to reveal important details about the offender - personal history, family background

Question 3

Geographical profiling

Answer 3

uses information about the location of linked crime scenes to make inferences about the likely home or operational base of an offender - known as crime mapping and based on the principle of spatial consistency (people commit crimes within a limited geographical space)
- the assumption is that serial offenders will restrict their ‘work’ to geographical areas they are familiar with

Question 4

canters circle theory

Answer 4

describing offenders in 2 ways -
-the marauder - operates in close proximity to their home
-the commuter - who is likely to have travelled a distance away from their usual residence

Question 5

further evidence- bottom up canter

Answer 5

Lundrigan and Canter (2001) collated information from 120 murder cases involving serial killers in the US- smallest space analysis revealed spatial consistency c reating a ‘centre of gravity’ - the offenders base was invariably located in the centre of the pattern

Question 6

wider range of application- bottom up

Answer 6

Wider range of applications: Whereas the top-down approach only really works for crimes with a particular modus operandi, such as rape and murder, the bottom-up approach can be applied to a much wider range of crimes. For example, most burglaries are similar in method and so a top-down approach won’t reveal much about the offender’s profile. However, geographical profiling only requires the locations of the crimes, and so this bottom-up approach can be applied to basically every type of crime.

Question 7

more scientific -bottom up

Answer 7

The bottom-up approach relies on objective and measurable data (e.g. plotting geographic locations of crimes), uses mathematical tools (e.g. statistical analysis), and is often based on psychological theory (e.g. interpersonal coherence). Because of this, Canter argues the bottom-up approach is more scientific than the top-down approach, which relies more on intuition and gut-feeling.