FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY - Offender profiling: The bottom-Up approach

Question 1

what is the bottom up approach?

Answer 1

• British model
  -providers up from evidence collected from the crime scene to develop hypothesis about the likely characteristics, motivations and social background of the offender.

Question 2

What is investigative psychology?

Answer 2

-matches details from crime scene with statistical analysis of typical offender behaviour patterns based on psychological theory
AIM = establish patterns of behaviour that are likely to occur across crime scene and develop a statistical database which acts as a baseline for the comparison

INTERPERSONAL COHERENCE = the way offender behaves may reflect their behaviour in every day situations

Significance of time and place may indicate where the offender is living
Forensic awareness describes individuals who have been the subject of the police interrogation before = their behaviour may show how mindful they are of covering their tracks.

Question 3

What is geographical profiling?

Answer 3

• ROSSMO (1997) = stated that an offenders operational base of possible future offences are revealed by the geographical location of the previous crimes
  ASSUMES = offenders would restrict their work to geographical areas that they are familiar with.
  CIRCLE THOERY ( CANTER + LARKIN 1933) = proposes to models of offender behaviour: the marauder and the commuters.

Question 4

What is the marauder?

Answer 4

Offender operates in close proximity to their home base

Question 5

What is the commuter?

Answer 5

Offended troubles or distance away from their usual residence.

Question 6

Give strength of bottom up offender profiling?

Answer 6

+ RESEARCH SUPPORT - EVIDENCE FOR INVESTIGATIVE PSYCHOLOGY
Canter and Heritage (1990) - conducted a content analysis of 66 sexual assault cases using small space analysis. Multiple characteristics were commonly identified in most cases = each individual displayed a pattern of behaviours which can help establish whether two or more offences were committed by the same person. This supports investigative psychology that people are consistent in their behaviour.

+ evidence for geographical profiling = Lundrigan + Canter (2001) = small space analysis was used to analyse 120 murder cases which revealed spatial consistency in the behaviour of killers. Location of each body disposal site was plotted and a centre of gravity was identified. Offenders base was in the centre of pattern which supports the view that geographical information can be used to identify an offender..

Question 7

Give limitations of bottom up offender profiling.

Answer 7

Counterpoint for geographic profiling = the success of geographic profiling may be reliant on the quality of the data that the police officer can provide. The recording of the crime is not always accurate and varies between police forces and an estimated 75% of crimes is not even reported. Even if info is provided = factors such as time of offence , age, experience of offender is important. Geographical information does not always lead to the successful capture of offender.

MIXED RESULTS FOR PROFILING
Copson (1995) = surveyed 48 police forces and found that advice provided by profiler was judged as useful in 83% of cases. However it only led to accurate identification of offender in just 3% of cases .This question it’s validity..