OFFENDER PROFILING: TOP DOWN AO1 & AO3 Flashcards

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1
Q

offender profiling

A
  • 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.
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2
Q

what is the main aim of top down approach

A
  • 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.
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3
Q

Top down approach (FBI DATA)

A
  • 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.
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4
Q

what are some characteristics of organised offenders

A
  • precision
  • little evidence left behind (planned crime)
  • married/family
  • well educated (above average)
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5
Q

what are some characterists of disorganised offender

A
  • unskilled/unemployed
  • tend to live alone (relatively live close to the crime)
  • lower than average IQ
  • impulsive/unplanned/left clues
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6
Q

How do they construct an FBI profile?

A
  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
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7
Q

one strength is research support for an organised catageory

A
  • 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
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8
Q

counterargument Godwin (2002)

A

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

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9
Q

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

A
  • 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
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10
Q

Personality

A
  • 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.
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