forensics: offender profiling - the bottom up approach

Question 1

what is the ‘bottom up approach’

Answer 1

• Profilers work upwards from evidence collected at the crime scene to develop hypotheses about characteristics/motivation of the offender

Question 2

what is investigative psychology

Answer 2

• aim is to establish patterns of behaviour that are likely to occur across crime scenes
• form of bottom up profiling, matches details of crime scenes to with statistical analysis off typical offender behaviour

Question 3

what is interpersonal coherence

Answer 3

• central part of the bottom up approach
• the way an offender behaves at a crime scene - how they treat victim etc may reflect their behaviour in everyday situations
• e.g. some rapists like to humiliate victims/some apologetic (Dwyer)

Question 4

what is ‘forensic awareness’

Answer 4

describes individuals who have been subject to police interrogations before and may be better at ‘covering their tracks’

Question 5

who described the technique of geographical profiling

Answer 5

Rossmo

Question 6

what is geographical profiling

Answer 6

• based on the principle of spatial consistency
• an offenders operational base + possible future offences are revealed by location of previous crimes
• crime mapping - making inferences about location of future offences

Question 7

what is the assumption of serial offenders in relation to geographical profiling

Answer 7

• they will ‘restrict’ their work to areas they are familiar with
• understanding the spatial pattern of offenders behaviour helps investigators track down future offences

Question 8

what is the ‘jeopardy surface’

Answer 8

when investigators can make educated guesses about where an offender may strike next

Question 9

what did canters circle theory (canter and Larkin) propose

Answer 9

two models of offender behaviour:
-the marauder -operates in close proximity to home base
- the commuter - likely to have travelled some distance
- in both, the pattern of offending forms a circle around their usual residence

Question 10

what are the three evaluation points for the bottom up approach for offender profiling

Answer 10

• evidence in support of investigative psychology
• evidence in support of geographical profiling
• has a scientific basis

Question 11

outline ‘evidence in support of investigative psychology ‘ as a strength of the bottom up approach

Answer 11

• Canter and Heritage - content analysis of 66 SA cases
• data examined using the smallest space analysis (computer program that identifies correlations across patterns of behaviour)
• impersonal language + lack of reaction to the victim found to be common characteristics - can be used to identify crimes committed by same person
• shows how statistical techniques can be applied

Question 12

outline ‘evidence in support of geographical profiling’ as a strength of the bottom up approach

Answer 12

• Lundrigan + canter - took info from 120 murder cases involving serial killers in USA
• smallest space analysis revealed spatial consistency in behaviour of the killers
• location of body disposal sites were in different direction from previous sites creating a ‘centre of gravity’
• spatial info is key for determining the base of offenders

Question 13

outline ‘has a scientific basis’ as a strength of the bottom up approach

Answer 13

• canter argues bottom up profiling is more objective/scientific than top down
• as it is grounded in evidence and psychological theory
• with artificial intelligence, investigators can quickly manipulate geographical + biographical info quicky to aid investigations