Offender Profiling Flashcards
Top down approach
- Profiler uses previous experience and the evidence from the crime to develop a profile of the criminal
- assumes modus perandi of the criminal is a reflection of their personality
Psychologist associated with the stage of building the top down profile
Jackson and bakerian
4 stages of building top down profile
- Data assimilation= collecting all evidence available
- Crime classification = categories the crime into a particular type using the distinction between organised vs disorganised - devolved by hazel and Douglas
- Crime reconstruction = reconstructing the crime in order to develop predictions about the behaviour and motives of the offender as well as the victim
- Profile generation = creating a profile based on info from the crime scene, offender category an crime reconstruction, profile include: characteristic and personality of the offender
Organised offender
- victim targeted
- crime scene: no weapon, body hidden, clean up
- characteristics of criminal: high intelligence, sexually & socially competent
- background of criminal: eldest child, inconsistent discipline as a child
Disorganised offender
- victim chosen randomly
- crime scene: weapon found, body left
- characteristics of criminal: sexually & socially incompetent, low skilled occupation
- background of the criminal: youngest, harsh discipline as a child
Evidence of Weakness of top down approach
Evidence: canter et al
- 39 aspects of serial killings committed by 100 serial killers using disorganised and organised classification
- analysis showed no clear division between organised-disorganised offenders
- however higher number of disorganised vs organised crimes suggests disorganised crimes easier to detect or organised crime less frequent
- however disorganised cries easier to detect the criteria for organised vs disorganised crimes lack validity
He also argued
- to simplistic to use binary distinctions between organised and disorganised as not ever criminal does not neatly fit into a category this makes prediction of the criminals behaviour difficult
Weakness of top down approach
- limited applicability to other types of crime other than murder and raps it’s
- gender bias primarily focuses on organised vs disorganised male offenders where s female offenders might have different characteristics
Strength of top down approach
I may not lead to to the identification of the offender it does provide investigators with a different perspective and may prevent wrongful conviction
The bottom up approach
Profiler uses facts and figures from previous crimes of the same type yo develop a profile of the criminal
2 method of the bottom up approach
- investigative psychology ( David canter)
- geographical profiling
Investigative psych
- David canter
- Based on research and statistical techniques
- 5 key assumptions about interactions between offender and their victims
The 5 key assumption of investigative psych
- interpersonal coherence: behaviour of offender that’s consistent across situations, assumes there will be consistency between the way offender’s interact with victims
- time and place: location and place can provide clues to where offender live/works
- criminal characteristics: can classify them
- criminal career: how many crimes and what type of crime offender has already committed, this might predict behaviour
- forensic awareness: offenders which understand forensic investigation has most likely previously committed a crime
Geographically profiling
- statistical technique used by investigate psychologists to create an offender profile
- analyse of locations of a connected series f crime to determine the most probable area the the offender live
- canter and young: 4 principles
4 principles - canter and young
Locatedness: location provide info about type of offender
( victim was met, victim killed, boy disposed)
Systematic: offender don’t tend chose location randomly they tend to be familiar
Centrality: 2 types of offender commuters from (commits crime close to where they live, feel secure) and marauders (commis crime away where they live)
- comparative case analysis: unresolved crimes should be considered as being committed by the same offender
Supporting evidence fr bottom up approach
Successfully applied to historical cases of crime
- used to arrest the railway rapist john Duffy
- he fitted canter geographical profile assumed he would be familiar with the railway and live near the crime scene
- valid approach to offender profile
Copson
- surveyed 48 police offender profiling 75% found it useful 3% actually helped identify offender
- suggests bottom up profiling alone is not effective, requires combination of methods
