offender profiling : the top-down approach

Question 1

offender profiling

Answer 1

use evidence from the crime scene to find out about the killer (e.g. age, occupation)

Question 2

the american approach (top-down) pt1

Answer 2

-FBI in the 1970s
-characteristics of the crime are matched to a template
-‘organised’ and ‘disorganised’
-template from interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial killers

Question 3

types of offenders - organised

Answer 3

-evidence of planning
-choose types of victim
-emotionally detached, little evidence, intelligent and skilled

Question 4

types of offenders - disorganised

Answer 4

-not pre-planned
-more evidence left behind
-lower IQs, unskilled, history of psychological disfunction

Question 5

4 stages of constructing a profile

Answer 5

1. data assimilation - reviewing evidence
2. crime scene classification - organised or disorganised
3. crime reconstruction - sequence of events
4. profile generation - characteristics of offender

Question 6

strength - support for distinct categories

Answer 6

canter (2004) - statistical analysis of 39 different aspects of 100 murders (restraint etc)
-supports either organised or disorganised (validity)
-however, people can be in both categories/mixture of both

Question 7

strength - wider application

Answer 7

-meketa (2017) - when used with burglaries, solved cases rose by 85%
-approach is useful as it applies to non-sexual and non-violent crimes

Question 8

weakness - flawed evidence

Answer 8

canter (2004) - sample was poor/limited
-interviews for each murderer were different (no consistency - not scientific)

Question 9

weakness - lack of consistency

Answer 9

-MO can change as the criminal evolves and therefore its classification can change
-therefore issues of consistency for identifying serial offenders