Offender profiling: The bottom up approach

Question 1

+A01

What is the Bottom-Up Approach?

Answer 1

Aim- to generate a picture of the offender
Systemic analysis of evidence from the crime scene is used to generate a profile of offender, & hypothesise their characteristics, behaviours, social background & routine behaviour
The profile is data driven it focuses only on the info provided at crime scene, the more detail that emerges, the more the evidence is scrutinised

Two examples of the bottom-up approach are: Investigative Psychology and Geographical Profiling

Question 2

What is investigative psychology

Answer 2

• aim of investigative psychology is to implement psychological theory with statistical procedures to analyse crime scene evidence, to help establish patterns of behaviour that likely to occur across crime scenes
• This form statistical database of co-existing behaviours across crime scenes that can be used as baseline of comparison for future crimes

centre of this approach is interpersonal coherence-the way offenders behave at scene e,g how interact with victim help reflects their behaviour in everyday situations

Question 3

What is Geographical Profiling( rosso)

Answer 3

Geographical profiling (GP)- ‘crime mapping’ Rosso (1997)
gp is based on spatial consistency
GP is used to analyse the geographical locations of offences which appear to be linked
GP operates along the assumption that serial offenders fall into two categories: marauders & commuters
Marauders commit crimes within their neighbourhood, not far from where they live/work
Commuters commit crimes away from their neighbourhood
GP uses the ‘circle theory’ which is applied by drawing a circle around the seemingly linked offences: the offender is thought to live somewhere inside the circle

Question 4

What is spatial consistency

Answer 4

People commit crimes within limited geographical space

Question 5

A03

Wider application-appleid to wide range of offences

strength

Answer 5

Advantage of bottom up aprroach over top down approach is that it can be applied to wide range of offences. Techniqeus such as smallest space analysis & principle of spatial consistency can be used in investigation of crimes such as bulgarty & theft & in serious offences such as murder & rape.

Question 6

strength of bottom up approach-more objective

Answer 6

Much research - particularly by Canter supports the effectiveness of the BUA in identifying and apprehending dangerous offenders
The BUA takes a more objective approach than the TDA with its use of statistical methods which means that it is more reliable than other approaches to profiling

Question 7

A03

Forensic Psychology: Offender profiling: The bottom-up approach: Mixed results for profiling (evaluation)

Limitation

Answer 7

Despite many successes that BUP to profiling has produced, studies examining the effectiveness of Offender profiling have had mixed results.

For example, Copson (1995) surveyed 48 police forces and found that advice provided by the profiler was useful in 83% of cases, but only in 3% did it lead to identification.

Kocsis et al (2002) found that chemistry students produced a more accurate offender profile on a solved murder case than experienced senior detectives.