offender profiling - the top-down approach Flashcards
offender profiling
investigative tool employed by the police when solving crimes
main aim is to narrow the list of likely suspects
compiling of a profile will usually include careful scrutiny of the crime scene and analysis of the other evidence such as witness reports to generate a hypotheses about the probable characteristics of the offender
american approach
originated in the us as a result for work carried out by the FBI in 1970s
specifically in FBIs behavioural science unit
drew upon data gathered from interviews with 36 sexually motivated murders including ted bundy and charles manson
they concluded that the data could be categorised into organised and disorganised crimes
each category had certain characteristics
offender profilers who use the top down approach will collect data about a murder and then decide on the category the data best fits
organised and disorganised types of offender
organised and disorganised distinction is based on the idea that serious offenders have certain signature ways of working
these generally correlate with a particular set of social and psychological characteristics that relate to the individual
organised offender
show evidence of having a planned crime in advance
victim is deliberately targeted
suggest that the killer has a type of victim they seek out
offender maintains a hugh degree of control during the crime and may operate with almost detached surgical precision
little evidence or clues left behind at the scene
tend to be above average intelligence
in a skilled professional occupation
socially and sexually competent
usually married and even have children
disorganised offender
show little evidence of planning
suggests that offences may be spontaneous
crime sece rend to reflect the impulsive nature of the attack
the body is usually still at the scene
there appeared to have been very little control on the part of the offender
tend to have lower than average IQ
unskilled work or unemployed
often have a history of sexual dysfunction
failed relationships
tend to live alone
relatively live close to where the offence took place
constructing an FBI profile
4 main stages in the construction
- data assimilation - profiler reviewers the evidence
- crime scene classification - as either organised or disorganised
3 crime reconstruction = hypotheses in terms of sequence of events behaviour of the victim
- profile generation - hypotheses related to the likely offender eg demographic background physical characteristics behaviour
strenght
research support
support for a distinct organised category of offender
in order to test the organised-disorganised typology which is central to the top down approach
David Canter - conducted an analysis of 100 US murres each committed by a different serial killer
technique called smallest space analysis - a statistical technique that identifies correlations across different samples of behaviour
in this case the baalysis was used in order to assess the co-occurrence of 39 aspects for he serial killings
included things such as whether there was torture of restaurant or an attempt to conceals the body the form of the murder weapon etc
this analysis revealed that there dfoes seem to be soem features of many serial killing which mateched the FBIs typology for organised offenders
suggest that a key component of the FBI typology approach has soem validity
strength
wider application
can be adapted to other kinds of crime such as burglary
critics fo top-down proilimhn have claimed that the technique only applies to limited numbers of crimes such as sexually motivated riders
however Meketa reports that top-down profiling has recently been applied to burglary leading to an 85% rise in solved cases in the three US states
detection method retains the organised and disorganised distinction but also adds two new stergories interpersonal and opportunistic
suggest that the top down approach profiling has wider application than was originally assumed
limitation
flaswe evidnece
evidnece on which it is based
as we have seen FBI profiling was developed using interviews with 36 murders in the US
25 of which were serial killers the other 11 being single or double murderes
at the end of the process 24 of these indicidual wer classified as organised offenders suggest that and 12 were disorganised
Canter et al have argued tha the sample was poor the FBI agents did not select a random or even a large sample nor did the sample include different kinds of offender
there was no standard set of questions so each interview was diffent and therefore not really comparable
suggest that tip down profiling does not have a sound scientific basis