Offender Profiling Flashcards
Two types of offender profiling
Top Down and Bottom Up
Top Down is used by
The FBI
How were top down profiles made
Content analysis of interviews with 36 murderers in 1970s
How are offenders split in the top down approach
Into cateogries based on the crime and their characteristics.
What do the FBI do when searching for an unknown offender?
Analyse the crime for clues and characteristics which fit each typology so predict what person they are looking for
Top down typologies
Organised and Disorganised
Organised offender
- advanced planning
- low evidence and high control
- high IQ
- usually married with children
Disorganised offender
- spontaneous
- messy scene of crime
- low IQ
- history of failed relationships. alone
Top Down AO3 + application
To other crimes
- 85% more burglary cases solved
Top Down AO3 + Canter
100 serial killings
- distinct patterns in if body left and use of weapon consistent with typologies
- validity to existence
Top down AO3 - Godwin
Distinction between typologies too simplstic
- can show both characteristics
- false positive or negative
Top down AO3 - method
- unstrucuted interviews
- sample bias (only those caught)
- motive of ppts
Bottom up where
Britain
Bottom up - who created
David Canter = top down focuses too much on intuition and is not scientific
Bottom up features
Investigative psychology and geographical profiling
Investigative psychology
- statistical data base created using known solved crimes
- comparison made between crime and databse to find details of offender
Geographical profiling
- crime mapping
- Canter’s circle theory: centre of crime circle is the offender’s base
- offenders are either commuters or marauders
- commuters= travel to offences
- marauders = close proxemics between base and offences
Bottom up AO3 + Canter and Heritage
Small space analysis to examine 66 assualt cases
- pattern suggest case linkage as consistent with behaviours
Bottom up AO3 + Lundrigen and Canter
120 solved serial killer murders. Geographical profiling showed base almost always in the centre of body disposition sites
Bottom up AO3 - stat data base
Only based on solved cases
Bottom up AO3 - Mischel
Behaviour is based on situation no personality therefore a crime cannot determine a person’s personality
Bottom up AO3 - not always perfect
Rachel Nickell’s murderer was eliminated as ‘too tall’
- false postives and negatives are possible
