Forensic

Question 1

Explain the top down approach

Answer 1

• FBI
• also known as the typography approach
• profilers match what they know about the case to pre-existing templates that have been developed by the FBI
  -Offenders are organised into two categories (organised and disorganised)

they look at:
- behaviour towards the victim
- crime scene detail
- characteristics of criminal
- background of criminal

Question 2

How to construct an FBI profile as part of the top down approach

Answer 2

• Data assimilation (profiler reviews the evidence)
• crime scene classification (organised or disorganised
• crime reconstruction (hypthese of sequence of event
• profile generation (hypotheses to likely offender)

Question 3

(A03) benefits of the top down approach

Answer 3

+ evidence to support the effectiveness (Copson 1995)
^Questioned 184 police - 82% agreed that the technique is useful and 90% agreed they would use it again (can prevent a wrongful conviction)

+

Question 4

(A03) drawbacks of the top down approach

Answer 4

• Could mislead investigations (Snooker et al 2008)
  ^top down profilers are little more than psychics, who have a wealth of experience in reading behaviour. The process has no basis in scientific theory and could lead to a wrongful conviction
• classification is too simplistic
  ^behaviours of the two different types of murderers are not mutually exclusive, a variety of combinations could occur
  (Goodwin 2002) - questioned how police would classify a murder where the killer would had high intelligence, sexually competent but commits a spontaneous murder where the victims body is left at the crime scene
  (Holmes 1989) suggested that there are four types of serial killers (visionary, missionary, hedonistic and controlling) - this challenges the top down approach

Question 5

Explain the Bottom up approach

Answer 5

• British approach (David Canter)
• generate a picture of the offender through a systematic analysis of evidence at the crime scene (data driven approach)
• Investigative psychology: applying statistical procedures alongside psychological theory
  >interpersonal coherence (links with elements of the crime and how people behave in everyday life)
  >Forensic awareness (certain behaviours may reveal an awareness of police techniques and past experiences)
  >Smallest space analysis (statistical technique developed by David Canter) - data correlated to find most common characteristics

Geographical profiling; concerned with the ‘where’ of the crime