Offender Profiling

Question 1

What is offender profiling?

Answer 1

The idea that one can make assumptions about an offender’s characteristics by analysing the committed offence.

Question 2

When would offender profiling be used?

Answer 2

When police have little evidence to go on, they could enlist the help of a forensic psychologist.
The forensic psychologist will use prior knowledge, and evidence gathered from the scene to build an offender profile.

Question 3

What cases are offender profiling used for?

Answer 3

Murder & rape.

Question 4

What are the two types of offender profiling?

Answer 4

-Top-down approach.
-Bottom-up approach.

Question 5

What is the top-down approach?

Answer 5

An approach where preconceived ideas about the type of offender who would commit a particular crime are made, before evidence is fitted to that profile.

AMERICAN APPROACH.

Question 6

What sort of approach is the top-down approach?

Answer 6

Subjective.

Question 7

How was the top-down approach constructed?

Answer 7

FBI investigators carried out structured interviews with 36 sex murderers, covering:
-Lead up to the offence.
-Early warning signs.
-What encouraged offences.

Question 8

How did Hazelwood & Douglas (1980) study the top-down approach?

Answer 8

They separated criminals into two categories:
-Organised offender.
-Disorganised offender.

Question 9

What are the characteristics of an organised offence?

Answer 9

-Planned.
-Shows self-control.
-Lack of evidence at the scene.

Question 10

What are the characteristics of an organised offender?

Answer 10

-Above average IQ.
-Socially & sexually competent.
-Married with occupation.

Question 11

What are the characteristics of a disorganised offence?

Answer 11

-Unplanned.
-Random victim.
-Evidence at the scene.

Question 12

What are the characteristics of a disorganised offender?

Answer 12

-Below average IQ.
-Socially & sexually incompetent.
-Alone with no occupation.

Question 13

What is the 4 step process to offender profiling?

Answer 13

1. Data Assimilation: information is gathered from multiple sources (e.g. crime scene photos, police reports).
2. Crime Scene Classification: profilers decide whether the crime scene represents an organised or disorganised offender.
3. Crime Reconstruction: hypotheses are generated about the occurrence of the crime.
4. Profile Generation: profilers construct a sketch of the offender (e.g. demographic, physical characteristics, behavioural habits).

Question 14

Evaluation points for top-down approach:

Answer 14

-Adopted by law agencies worldwide.
-Copson (1995): 82% of police officers said it was useful, 90% said they would use it again.
-Clarke & Morely (1988) interviewed 41 rapists responsible for 800 offences: they were average men in normal family circumstances.
-Challenges stereotypes that investigators hold about offenders, resulting in mislead investigations.

Question 15

What is the bottom-up approach?

Answer 15

An approach where evidence from the crime scene is collected, and scientific & statistical predictions are made based on this evidence (and evidence from previous crimes).

BRITISH APPROACH.

Question 16

What sort of approach is the bottom-up approach?

Answer 16

Objective.

Question 17

Who constructed the bottom-up approach?

Answer 17

Canter (1990).

Question 18

How did Canter (1990) study the bottom-up approach?

Answer 18

Canter (1990) looked for consistencies in offenders’ behaviour during the crime.

Example: John Duffy carried out 24 sexual attacks and 3 murders of women near railway stations in North London in the 1980s.

Canter analysed the geographical details and the evidence and drew up a surprisingly accurate profile (e.g. worker for British Rail).

Question 19

Did the geographical profile of Canter (1990) directly lead to John Duffy’s arrest?

Answer 19

No, but it narrowed the suspect list.

Question 20

Features of the bottom-up approach:

Answer 20

-Starts with raw data about the crime, and makes it way up to a conclusion about the criminal.
-Assumes that offenders leave a “psychological fingerprint”/pattern of unique behaviour.
-Identifies consistencies within the behaviour of offenders and their identifiable differences.

Question 21

What are the types of the bottom-up approach?

Answer 21

-Geographical profiling.
-Investigative psychology.

Question 22

What is geographical profiling?

Answer 22

An approach that looks at location & timing patterns of offences to make judgements about where offenders live.

Question 23

How does geographical profiling work?

Answer 23

The locations of connected crimes are analysed to see where the crimes were committed, and the relationships between the crime scenes.

Question 24

How did Canter & Larkin (1993) study geographical profiling?

Answer 24

Canter & Larkin (1993) proposed the circle theory that claims that offenders commit crimes within an imagined circle.

Question 25

What are the two types of offenders (geographical profiling)?

Answer 25

Marauder - offender whose home is within the area the crimes were committed (most common).
Commuter - offender who travels to another area to commit a crime.

Question 26

What are features of a marauder?

Answer 26

-Commits crime within a confined area.
-Bounded by psychological barriers.
-Operates within awareness space.
-Anchor point to operate from.

Question 27

What are features of a commuter?

Answer 27

-Commits crimes over large areas.
-Complex hunting strategies.
-Lack of anchor point.
-Harder to geographically profile.

Question 28

What is investigative psychology?

Answer 28

An approach that uses methods of analysis (like ‘Smallest Space Analysis’) to identify patterns and predict offender characteristics from offending behaviour.

Question 29

What is Smallest Space Analysis?

Answer 29

A computer program (developed by Canter) that identifies correlation across patterns of behaviour, used to generate a profile based on crime scene evidence.

Question 30

What is interpersonal coherence?

Answer 30

How an offender acts during a crime is likely to relate to their actions in non-criminal situations.

Question 31

Evaluation points for bottom-up approach:

Answer 31

• Copson stated that 75% found it useful at narrowing down suspects.
• Statistical basis makes this more reliable.
• Can be applied to a wide range of offences (unlike top-down approach).
• Canter & Larkin found in 45 sexual assaults, 91% were marauders - this may suggest that this is too generic and may apply to too many people.