Forensics: Offender profiling Flashcards
Define offender profiling
a tool used to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown criminals
Two types of offender profiling are…
- Top-Down approach (American)
2. Bottom-up approach (British)
Outline the Top-Down approach:
- American
- Pre existing template
- Match what they know about the crime to:
1. Organised offender
2. Disorganised offender - Constructing an FBI PROFILE
Outline the Top-Down approach:
Organised offender
shows signs of planning
little evidence left
high IQ
targets specific individual
Outline the Top-Down approach:
Disorganised offender
shows little planning
evidence is left
low IQ, failed relationships
random target
Outline the Top-Down approach:
Constructing an FBI profile
- Data assimilation (evidence)
- Crime scene classification (organised or disorganised)
- Crime reconstruction (hypothesis of events)
- Profile generation (hypothesis of likely offender)
Evaluation of Top down approach:
- Only applies to particular crimes where lots is left at crime scene
- Based on outdated static models of personalty, low validity to identify suspects
- Could show signs of both organised and disorganised
- Based on just a small sample of individuals
Outline the Bottom-Up approach:
- British
- work up from evidence collected at scene to develop hypothesis about likely characteristics motivations and social background
- investigative psychology
- Geographical profiling
Outline the Bottom-Up approach:
- Investigative psychology
matches details from crime scene with statistical analysis of typical offender behaviour patterns
- Interpersonal coherence = how criminal interacts with victim may reflect their everyday behaviour
- Significance of time and place = Geographical profiling
- Forensic awareness = Those who have been part of police interrogation before tells us how mindful they are covering their tracks
Outline the Bottom-Up approach:
- Geographical psychology
crime mapping and finding their base
Canters circle theory proposed:
1. The marauder - operates close to base
2. The commuter - travels
Evaluation of the bottom-up approach
+ Applies to wider crimes (robbery - murder)
- Garry cops surveys 48 police forces and found only 3% of cases using profiling lead to correct identification
+ Supporting evidence for geographical profiling (canter, 120 murdered followed circle theory
+ Scientific basis (more driven by evidence rather than inferences)
