Offender Profiling (Top Down) Flashcards
What is offender profiling?
An investigative tool employed by the police when solving crimes, the main aim of which is to narrow the list of likely suspects.
What is the top-down approach?
Profilers start with a pre-established typology and work down to lower levels in order to assign offenders to one of two categories, based on witness accounts and evidence from the crime scene.
What are the two categories of offenders?
Organised and disorganised.
What is an organised offender?
An offender who shows evidence of planning, targets a specific victim and tends to be socially and sexually competent with higher-than-average intelligence.
What is a disorganised offender?
An offender who shows little evidence of planning, leaves clues and tends to be socially and sexually incompetent with lower-than-average intelligence.
Where did the top down approach originate?
Originated in the US, as a result of work carried out by the FBI.
FBI drew upon data gathered from in-depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated murders including Ted Bundy and Charles Manson.
Why is it actually called the top down approach?
Because it starts at the top (the actual crime e.g murder) and works down through the crime scene to decide on a category that fits the offender best.
What are the four main stages of the FBI top down profiling?
1-Data Assimilation
2-Crime Scene Classification
3- Crime reconstruction
4- Profile generation.
What happens during data assimilation?
The profiler reviews the evidence (crime scene photographs/pathology, reports).
What happens during crime scene classification?
As either organised or disorganised.
What happens during crime reconstruction?
Hypotheses in terms of sequence of events, behaviour of the victim, etc.
What happens during profile generation?
Hypotheses related to the likely offender, e.g demographic background, physical characteristics, behaviour etc.
What piece of research supported there being a distinct organised category of offender?
David Canter 2004: conducted an analysis of 100 US murders each committed by a different serial killer. Used smallest space analysis.
It appears there is a subset of features of many serial killing which matched the FBI’s typology for organised offenders.
What is an issue with the organised and disorganised typology?
Maurice Godwin (2002) argues many crimes can be classified as both organised and disorganised and that they are not mutually exclusive.
What is a strength of the top down approach in regards to crime application?
Critics argued it only applies to a number of crimes e.g sexually motivated murders. However, Meketa reports that is has now been applied to burglary leading to an 85% rise in solved cases in three US states.
