offender profiling Flashcards
What is offender profiling?
Making assumptions about the characteristics of an offender by a careful analysis of the offence they commit
Assumptions e.g. age, gender, ethnicity, plus physical and behavioural characteristics
Narrows down potential suspects
What is a modus operandi?
Distinictive way a criminal commits a crime
aka ‘signiture’
When is offender profiling used?
Serious crimes, and serial offenders
What is the difference between the top down and bottom up approach?
Bottom up (UK):
Info is gathered from the scene>statistical analysis (comparing to similar crimes) e.g. how far an offender would travel
Top down (USA):
Pre-existing offender type categories (organised v disorganised [typology])>crime scene info to fit them in categories
What are the 4 stages to constructing a profile in the top down approach?
Data assimilation
Crime scene classification
Crime scene reconstruction
Profile generation
What is data assimilation?
Info gathered from the crime scene e.g. choice of victim, location, autopsy, witnesses, photographs
What is crime scene classification
Classifying criminal type:
Organised- planned, control, body hidden, high iQ, follows crime in media
Disorganised- spontaneous, evidence left
What is crime scene reconstruction
Hypothesis of sequence of events, or offenders or victims behaviour
What is profile generation
Inferences made from hypothesis e.g. age, gender, ethnicity
One strength of the top down approach is that its been used in prolific cases
PET
E: Ressler developed definitions of organized v disorganised with serial offenders e.g. Ted Bundy
T: Shows that there’s distinct types of offender that may predict behaviour
One weakness of the top down approach is the research its based on has a small sample
PET
E: FBI mainly used it on serial killers, who don’t represent the wider offender population
T: Sample is too limited to generalise findings across a spectrum of criminal behaviour
One weakness of the top down approach is that its reductionist
PET
E: doesn’t account for offenders with a mix of organized and disorganization, which other psychologists have done
T: too simplistic
What are the 5 characteristics in the bottom up approach
Interpersonal coherence
Time and place significance
Criminal characteristics
Criminal career
Forensic awareness
What is interpersonal coherence?
How a person interacts with other people is how they would interact with their victim e.g. aggressive or shy
What is time and place significance?
Location and time is significant to offender, ties into offenders schema
Will feel more comfortable in a place they know better
What are criminal characteristics?
How the crime is committed suggests offenders characteristics
Based from previous criminal studies
What is a criminal career?
How following crimes by the same offender changes due to the criminal to the criminal becoming more experienced e.g. starting to use restraints
What is forensic awareness?
Criminal showing knowledge of the CJS
Using techniques to reduce evidence at the crime scene
What is geographic profiling in the bottom up approach?
What are 4 features of geographic profiling?
Narrowing down search areas by assuming that the location of crime isn’t random
Least effort principle
Distance decay
Circle hypothesis
Jeopardy surface
What is the least effort principle?
The offender will pick the location for a crime closest to their home base
What is distance decay?
Further away from offenders home base>crimes decrease
Aka “buffer zone” (circle) around their house, to prevent them getting recognised
What is the circle hypothesis?
If you draw a circle of where they commit crimes, offenders home will likely be in that circle
This is a “muradaur”=commits crime within confined area
Commuter=commits crime over large areas
What is the jeopardy surface?
Complex version of geographical profilling
Includes geographical data and features of the environment to create a 3D heat map of where the offenders base may be located
One strength of the bottom approach is that there’s support from case studies
PET
E: John Duffy aka “railway rapist”, multiple sexual assaults and 3 murders
Canter (founder of bottom up) used this approach, analysing geographical info and was successful
T: credible, useful application
One limitation of the bottom up approach is that its difficult to generalise case studies
PET
E: Serial killers are unique, with different characteristics
T: Cannot be applied
One strength of the bottom up approach is that it can be used on a variety of crimes
PET
E: Used in property and violent crimes
T: Can be applied
One limitation of OVERALL offender profiling is that the effectiveness is difficult to assess
E: Offender profiling is always used alongside other forensic techniques
T: Validity questioned
