Forensic Psychology : Offender Profiling Flashcards
What is offender profiling
- Is an investigate tool employed by the police when solving crimes, the main aim of which is to narrow the field of enquiry and the list of likely suspects.
- usual involve careful scrutiny of the crime scene and analysis of the evidence ( including witness report) in order to generate hypothesis about the probable characteristics.
What is a top down approach
- To profiling originated in the US (1970) as a result of work carried out by the FBI.
- based on qualitative data
- is a way to solve bizarre and extreme crimes e.g murder and rape
What is top down approach also known as ?
Known as the typology approach, offender profiles who use this method will match what is known about the crime and the offender to a pre-existing template that the FBI developed.
Research for Top-down Approach
FBI investigators initially carried out structured interviews with 36 serial sex murderers, including Ted Bundy and Charles Manson covering:
◦ What led to the offending
◦ What early warning signs there were
◦ What encouraged or inhibited offences etc
From interview responses, plus a thorough analysis of the details of their crimes by Behavioural Science Unit they categorised offenders of serious crimes (murder and rape) into organised and disorganised offenders.
What is organised offenders
Show evidence of having planned the crime in advance; the victim is deliberately targeted and will often reflect the fact that the killer or rapist has a ‘type’
Characteristics of Organised offenders?
- Characteristics of offence ?
-planned
- show’s self-control
- Lack of evidence left at the scene
- Targeted victim & tries to control the victim
- Weapon hidden - Characteristics of offender
- Above average IQ
-Socially and sexually competent
- Married/cohabiting
- Anger or depression at the time of the offence
- Skilled occupation - Post offence behaviour
- Returns to the crime scene
- Volunteers information
What are disorganised offenders?
Show little evidence of planning , suggesting the offence may have been a spontaneous, spur of the moment act. The crime scene tends to reflects the impulsive nature of the attack
Characteristics of disorganised ?
- Characteristics of offence
- Unplanned/spontaneous
-Likely to leave evidence at the scene
- Victim randomly selected
- minimum use of constraint
- Disorganised behaviour - Characteristics of offender
- lives alone , near the crime scene
- socially and sexually inadequate
- physically or sexually abused in childhood
- Frightened/confused at the time of the offence
- Low intelligence/no occupation - Post offence behaviour
- Return to the crime scene to relive the offence
- Keep diary
- Keep news articles of the incident
What are the 4 stages of the top down approach
- Data assimilation
- Crime scene classification
- Crime reconstruction
- Profile generation
What is data assimilation
The profiler reviews the evidence (crime scene photographs, pathology reports, etc)
What is crime scene classification
As either organised or disorganised
What is crime reconstruction
Hypothesis in terms of sequence of events , behaviour of the victim , etc.
What is profile generation
Hypothesis related to likely offender, e.g of demographic background, physical characteristics, behaviour, etc.
Top down approach evaluation: Advantages
● Copson (1995) 82% police officers interviewed said it was useful & 90% said they would use it again
● Influential as it’s the first approach to profiling
● There is evidence to support the existence of an organised offender type,
but the same cannot be said for the disorganised type, as suggested by Canter et al (2004).
Top down approach evaluation: Limitations
● Small sample size
● Low validity - based on 36 individuals via interviews
● Low reliability - can we trust convicted criminals?
● Lack of generalisability - only applies to bizarre and extreme murders
and sexual crimes
● Not based on scientific evidence/methodology
● Lack of support from research
