OFFENDER PROFILING: TOP DOWN AO1 & AO3

Question 1

offender profiling

Answer 1

• also known as ‘criminal profiling’, a behavioural and analytical tool that is intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown criminals.

Question 2

what is the main aim of top down approach

Answer 2

• The main aim of offender profiling is to narrow the field of enquiry and the list of likely suspects.
• Methods vary, but the compiling of a profile will usually involve careful scrutiny of the crime scene and analysis of the evidence in order to generate a hypothesis about the possible characteristics of the offender.

Question 3

Top down approach (FBI DATA)

Answer 3

• The top-down approach = profilers start with a pre-established typology and work down in order to assign offenders to one of the two categories based on witness accounts and evidence from the crime scene. (disorganised and organised)
• The top-down approach was established in the 1970s as a result of work carried out by the FBI by their Behavioural Science Unit, who carried out a set of in-depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial killers, including Ted Bundy and Charles Manson.

Question 4

what are some characteristics of organised offenders

Answer 4

• precision
• little evidence left behind (planned crime)
• married/family
• well educated (above average)

Question 5

what are some characterists of disorganised offender

Answer 5

• unskilled/unemployed
• tend to live alone (relatively live close to the crime)
• lower than average IQ
• impulsive/unplanned/left clues

Question 6

How do they construct an FBI profile?

Answer 6

1. Data assimilation - Profiler reviews evidence
2. Crime scene classification - Organised vs disorganised
3. Crime reconstruction - Hypothesis in terms of sequence of events, behaviour of victim
4. Profile generation - Hypothesis related to the likely offender

Question 7

one strength is research support for an organised catageory

Answer 7

• canter et al looked at 100 US serial killers. smallest space analysis was used to acess the co-occurrence of 39 suspects of the serial killings.
• analysis revealed a subset of bev of many serial killings which match FBIs typology for organised offenders.
• this suggests that top down approach has some validity

Question 8

counterargument Godwin (2002)

Answer 8

argued that, in reality, most killers have mutiple contrasting characteristics and dont fit into one “type”. this suggests that the organised- disorganised typology is probably more of an continium

Question 9

Another strength is that it can be adapted to other types of crime E.G buglarly

Answer 9

• Mekata(2017 reports that top-down profling has recently been applied to buglary leading to an 85% rise in solved cases in three US states
• the detection method has added two new catagories- interpersonal (ofender knows victim) and opportunistic
• has wider application than assumed

Question 10

Personality

Answer 10

• the top down approach is beased on behavioural in consistencys - that serial offenders have characteristic ways of working so crime scene characteristics help idenitification
• mischel argued that peoples behaviour is much more driven by the situation they are in rather than personality
• this suggests that a profiling based on behavioural consistencys will not lead to correct identification.