FP- Offender Profiling

Question 1

What is the top-down approach?

Answer 1

The top-down approach is where offenders are put into one of two pre-existing typologies, organised or disorganised, based on witness accounts and evidence left at the crime scene

Question 2

How is a FBI profile constructed?

Answer 2

• Data assimilation: profiler reviews the evidences
• Crime scene classification: organised or disorganised
• Crime reconstruction: hypothesis in terms of sequence of events
• Profile generation: hypothesis related to the likely offender

Question 3

Characteristics of an organised offender (top-down approach)

Answer 3

• Socially and sexually competent
• Specific ‘type’ of victim targeted
• Planned attack
• Above average intelligence

Question 4

Negative evaluation of the top-down approach

Answer 4

• Only applies to particular crimes where the crime scene reveals important details about the suspect, not fitted for more common offences like burglary and fraud
• Oversimplification, there may be an offender that is suited for both categories

Question 5

Characteristics of a disorganised offender (top down approach)

Answer 5

• Socially and sexually incompetent
• Lower than average intelligence
• No planning (leaves body and clues at the scene)

Question 6

What is the bottom-up approach?

Answer 6

Profilers work up from the evidence collected from the crime scene and eyewitness testimony to develop a hypothesis

Question 7

What are the main aspects of the bottom-up approach?

Answer 7

• Investigative psychology
• Geographical profiling

Question 8

What is investigative psychology?

Answer 8

• Crime is recorded onto a database
• Details of new crime are matched with database to form a hypothesis about the likely characteristics, social demographic and motivations of the likely offender
• The basis of the approach is interpersonal coherence

Question 9

What is interpersonal coherence?

Answer 9

The way an offender behaviours at the scene, including how they interact with the victim, may reflect their behaviour in more everyday situations

Question 10

What is geographical profiling?

Answer 10

• It’s based on the principle of spatial consistency proposed by Canter’s circle theory
• It suggests that an offender’s operational base and possible future offences can be inferred by the locations of their previous crimes

Question 11

Positive evaluation of the bottom-up approach

Answer 11

• Much research, particularly by Canter, supports the effectiveness of the bottom-up approach
• Takes a more objective approach than the top-down approach, using statistic analysis which makes it more reliable
• Can be used in a wider range of offences including burglary and theft unlike the top-down approach

Question 12

Negative evaluation of the bottom-up approach

Answer 12

• When surveyed, it was found to be useful in 83% of cases but only led to correct identification of the offender in 3% of cases