forensics (p3)

Question 1

What is offender profiling?

Answer 1

A behavioral and analytical tool intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown offenders

Question 2

What is the top down approach?

Answer 2

matching offenders/crime to pre-existing traits and classifying them into one of two categories based on the evidence: organised/disorganised offenders.

Question 3

What are the traits of an organised offender?

Answer 3

• type of victim
• high degree of control
• above average IQ
• evidence of planning
• sexually and socially competent, married w children

Question 4

What are the traits of a disorganised offender?

Answer 4

• little evidence of planning
• crime scene reflects impulsive nature body may still be at the scene
• lower than avg IQ, may be in unskilled work or unemployed
• a history of failed relationships and living alone, sexual dysfunction

Question 5

What are the four stages in the construction of an FBI profile (top down approach)

Answer 5

1) Data Assimilation: review of the evidence (photographs, pathology reports etc)
2) Crime Scene Classification: organised or disorganised
3) Crime Reconstruction: generating hypotheses about the behavior and events
4) Profile Generation: generation of hypotheses about the offender (eg background, physical characteristics etc)

Question 6

What is the Bottom Up Approach?

Answer 6

When profilers work up from evidence collected from the crime scene to develop hypotheses about the likely characteristics, motivations and social background of the offender. The profile is ‘data-driven’