Forensic psychology : offender profiling Flashcards
The Top down approach AO1 points
- offender profiling
- top down approach
- FBI data
- organised
- disorganised
- FBI profile construction
Top Down approach AO1 : Offender profiling
- aims to narrow down list of suspects
- tool used to predict + profile characteristics of unknown offender
Top down approach AO1: Top - Down approach (2)
- american approach
- profilers start w pre established typology and work down to lower levels in order to assign offenders to one of 2 categories
Top Down approach AO1: FBI data used to create 2 characteristics of offenders (3)
- FBI interviewed 36 sexually motivated murderers
- used data from their crimes + characteristics to create 2 categories of offenders (organised + disorganised)
- if the data from a future crime scene matches some of the characteristics of one category then we can predict other likely characteristics which helps identify unknown offender
Tope down approach AO1: characteristics of organised offenders
- evidence of planning the crime: victim deliberately targetted + murderer has a type of victim
- high degree of control during crime + little evidence left behind at scene
- above average IQ - in a killed/professional job
- usually married - may have children
Top DOwn approach AO1: characteristics of disorganised offenders (4)
- little evidence of planning - offence was spontaneous
- evidence left at scene + lack of control during crime - eg body left at crime scene
- below average IQ - unskilled work / unemployed
- history of failed relationships, lives alone + sexual dysfunction
Top DOwn approach AO1: constructing an FBI profile (4)
- Data assimilation : review evidence eg photographs, pathology reports etc
- crime scene classification: organised or disorganised
- crime reconstruction: generate hypothesis about behavior and events
- profile generation: generate hypothesis about offender ( eg background, physical characteristics etc…)
Top Down approach AO3 points (4)
❌ evidence for Top down app flawed:
- American approach, FBI didnt select random or large sample, only include 1 type of offender, interview, no standard set of qu’s so interviews not comparable, no scientific basis
✅ research support - analysis of 100 US serial killings
- Found a set of behaviors of many serial killings which match FBI’s typology for organised offenders
top down approach is valid method for offender profiling
❌ Top down profiling is reductionist
- Offenders are not simply either disorganized or organized.
there may be both organized and disorganized features to all their crimes. - it is more like a continuum
An offender may start off being disorganized and become more organized as they develop their modus operandi.
✅ mixed results regarding practical value of offender profiling
- one study showed that advice provided by a profiler was useful in 83% of cases
- same study found that only 3% of cases led to accurate identification
The bottom up approach AO1 points (6)
- bottom up approach
- investigative psychology: statistical analysis
- investigatibe psychology: analysis based on psychological concepts
- geographical profiling: crime mapping
- geographical profiling: offender types
- geographical profiling: circle theory
bottom up appraoch AO1: bottom up approach (4)
- british approach
- profilers work up from evidence collected at crime scene to develop hypotheses about likely characteristics of the offender
- doesnt begin with fixed typologies
2 forms of bottom up profiling: investigative psychology + geographical profiling
the bottom up appraoch AO1: investigative psychology: statistical analysis (3)
- statistical procedures used to detect patterns of behaviour likely to co-exist across crime scenes
- this develops a database which acts as a baseline for comparison
- features of an offence matched against this database to suggest potential details about the offender - eg family background
the bottom up appraoch AO1: investigative psychology: analysis based on psychological concepts (2)
- analysis based on concept of interpersonal coeherence
- offender behavior at crime scene and with the victim reflects behavior in everyday situations
the bottom up appraoch AO1: geographical profiling: crime mapping
- crime mapping: locations of crime used to infer home or operational base of offender
the bottom up appraoch AO1: geographical profiling: offender types (3)
- proposed by Canter + Larkin
- Marauder: operates close to home base
- commuter: travels distance from home base to commit crime
the bottom up appraoch AO1: geographical profiling: Circle theory (3)
- Canter and Larkin suggest that pattern of offending locations likely to form a circle around offenders home base
- the more offences commited, the more apparent circle is
- provides insight on nature of offence eg mode of transport, employment status, planned crime or spontaneous
