Offender profiling (top-down and bottom-up profiling)

Question 1

What is offender profiling?

Answer 1

• A method used to narrow down the search for a criminal based on different approaches; top-down approach and the bottom-up approach.

Question 2

What is the top-down approach?

Answer 2

• This approach uses the crime scene to help identify a murderer.
• It is a method developed by the FBI in 1970’s from interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial killers.
• It uses information from the crime scene to categorise murderers as ‘disorganised’ or ‘organised’ killers.

Question 3

Characteristics of organised killers

Answer 3

• Show evidence of advanced planning.
• Deliberately target victims.
• Reflects perpetrators “type”.
• Maintain a high degree of control.
• Body likely to have been moved.
• May operate with “detached surgical precision”
• Above average intelligence, skilled/ professional occupation, socially/ sexually competent.
• Usually married with children.

Question 4

Characteristics of a disorganised killer

Answer 4

• Little evidence of planning.
• Spontaneous/ spur of the moment.
• Scene reflect the impulsive nature of the attack.
• Body in situ.
• Little evidence of control in the offender’s part.
• Lower than average intelligence.
• Unskilled work or unemployed.
• History of sexual dysfunction/ failed relationships.
• Live alone and close to the scene.

Question 5

What are the 4 sections of the FBI profiling process?

Answer 5

1. Data assimilation.
2. Crime classification.
3. Crime reconstruction.
4. Profile generation.

Question 6

What is data assimilation?

Answer 6

• Data compiled from police reports, post mortems, crime scene photos etc.

Question 7

What is crime classification?

Answer 7

• Profilers decide whether the crime scene is organised or disorganised.

Question 8

What is crime reconstruction?

Answer 8

• Hypotheses about crime sequence, offender and victim behaviour etc.

Question 9

What is profile generation?

Answer 9

• Offender’s physical, demographic and behavioural characteristics.

Question 10

Evaluation of the top-down approach - (Alison 2002)

Answer 10

• Assumptions about stable types of criminals (limited reductionist approach)= highly likely that most criminals won’t fit into a specific category (this is because criminals always have different motivations).

Question 11

Evaluation of the top-down approach - (Godwin)

Answer 11

• Subjective judgements= Godwin suggested there was no objective tool for drawing the line on the characteristics of organised and disorganised killers, meaning there are issues for reliability and accuracy.

Question 12

Evaluation for the top-down approach -&+ (FBI Science Unit)

Answer 12

• = Small and unusual sample size, self report means there is a limitation in representiveness and generalisability.
  + = However they took a qualitative approach (in depth interviews provide insight and valuable information).

Question 13

Evaluation of the top-down approach + (Canter)

Answer 13

• Canter analysed 100 murders and compared them to 39 characteristics associated with disorganised killers.
• He found only patterns for organised killers.
• Canter used a technique called the small space analysis.
• This is a statistical technique that identifies correlations across different samples of behaviour.

Question 14

Support for the top-down profiling approach (Meketa)

Answer 14

• Tina Meketa (2017) reports that top-down profiling has recently been applied to burglary, leading to an 85% rise in solved cases in 3 US states.
• The detection method retains the organised-disorganised distinction but also adds two new categories; interpersonal (offender usually knows their victim and steals something of value) and opportunistic (generally inexperienced young offender).
• This suggests that top-down profiling has wider application than was originally assumed.

Question 15

What is the bottom-up profiling approach?

Answer 15

• The aim is to generate a picture of the offender (characteristics, routine behaviour, social background etc.) through analysis of the crime scene.
• This method then builds a picture of the potential criminal from facts and figures collated from previous crimes of the same type.
• This includes:
  1. Investigative psychology.
  2. Geographical profiling.

Question 16

What is geographical profiling?

Answer 16

• Involves analysing the location of a connected series of crimes, and looking at factors such as the spatial relationship between the different crime scenes and what this reveals in relation to the perpetrator.
• Rossmo stated that an offender’s operational base of possible future offences were revealed by the geographical location of their previous crimes (also known as spatial consistency).

Question 17

What are the 3 main principles which help shape a profile using geographical profiling?

Answer 17

1. Locatedness.
2. Systematic crime location choice.
3. Centrality.

Question 18

What is locatedness?

Answer 18

Some crimes have several locations and they are all really important for a profiler’s point of view. Locations include:
1. Where the victim is met initially.
2. Where the attack occurs.
3. Where the victim is actually killed.
4. Where the body is disposed of.

Question 19

What is the systematic crime location choice?

Answer 19

• This principle states that locations are not random.
• Familiarity is important to the offender.

Question 20

What is centrality?

Answer 20

• This principle states that there are 2 types of offender: commuters and marauders.
• Commuters travel to commit the crime (but it is still likely to be somewhere that is familiar to them).
• Marauders commit crimes close to home.
• This centrality means that the crimes must cluster.

Question 21

What is the circle theory?

Answer 21

• Proposes two models of offender behaviour.
• People operate within a limited spatial mind set that creates imagined boundaries in which crimes are likely to be committed.

Question 22

What is investigative psychology?

Answer 22

• Patterns that occur or co-exist across crime scenes are used to generate data about the offender.
• It is based on the psychological theory of matching behavioural patterns to generate data on the offender.

Question 23

Assumptions of investigative psychology that underpin the crime (3)

Answer 23

1. Interpersonal coherence.
2. Significance of time and place.
3. Forensic awareness.

Question 24

What is interpersonal coherence?

Answer 24

• This is the way in which an offender behaves at the scene.
• How they interact with the victim may indicate how they act in everyday life.

Question 25

What is the significance of time and place?

Answer 25

• This may indicate where the offender is living if the crimes take place within the same forensic “centre of gravity”.

Question 26

What is forensic awareness?

Answer 26

• This focuses on those who have been the focus of police attention before.
• There behaviours may denote how mindful they are of covering their tracks.

Question 27

Evaluation of bottom-up profiling -&+

Answer 27

• Investigative psychology is more scientific than the top-down approach as it is based on psychological theories and research.
• However, like the top-down approach, investigative psychology is based on research carried out in Western societies so it might not apply to other cultures without modifications.

Question 28

Evaluation of bottom-up profiling -

Answer 28

• This approach can provide useful information to aid the police in narrowing their search.
• However, it requires accurate data on the offenses committed in a particular area and this might be a problem with the under-reporting of crimes by the public, the recording of crimes by the police could also limit the effectiveness of this method.

Question 29

Evaluation of bottom-up profiling +

Answer 29

• Psychological profiles based on this approach have enabled the police to catch offenders in a number of high-profile cases, including that of John Duffy. Such cases have attracted a high degree of media attention.
• Real world application= this approach is actively used to solve crimes (used widely and effectively).

Question 30

Supporting research of bottom-up profiling (Canter)

Answer 30

• Analysis of 66 sexual assault cases using the smallest space analysis.
• Several behaviours were identified as common.
• This helped establish whether 2 or more offences were committed by the same person (referred to as ‘case linkage’).
• This supports one of the basic principles of investigative psychology (and the bottom-up approach) that people are consistent in their behaviour).