Offender profiling: top-down approach. Flashcards
Definition of offender profiling.
behavioural and analytical tool to help investigators predict and profile characteristics of unknown offenders.
Definition of the Top-down approach.
profilers start with pre-established typology, work down to lower levels to assign offenders to a category based on witness accounts and evidence from crime scene.
Describe how the Top-down approach came about?
Developed from interviews with 36 sexually motivated murderers.
Concluded data categorised into organised or disorganised crimes- predict characteristics to find offender.
Definition of an organised offender.
Offender who shows evidence of planning, targets victims, socially and sexually competent with higher-than-average intelligence.
E.g., Ted Bundy.
Definition of disorganised offender.
Offender little evidence of planning, leaves clues, socially and sexually incompetent with lower-than-average intelligence.
E.g., Richard Chase- random attacks on women of varying ages.
What are the four stages in constructing an FBI profile?
Data assimilation- profiler reviews evidence.
Crime scene classification- organised or disorganised.
Crime reconstruction- hypotheses in terms of sequence of events, behaviour of the victim.
Profile generation- hypothesis related to likely offender- physical characteristics
Describe a strength for the top-down approach, in terms of support for categories of offenders.
Canter analysed 100 murders by serial killers (SK) to test organised-disorganised typology.
Used smallest space analysis to assess co-occurrence of 39 aspects of SK (torture, restraint etc).
Found subset of features of serial killers, matched FBI’s typology for organised offenders (OO).
Suggests FBI typology is valid.
Definition of smallest space analysis.
Technique which identifies correlations across different samples of behaviour.
Describe a counterpoint for support for categories of offenders.
Can’t fit all SK into organised/ disorganised, more like a continuum.
Godwin- difficult classify killers as one category, multiple characteristics across both.
Describe a strength of top-down profiling (TDP), in terms of being able to adapt to other crimes.
Meketa- TDP applied to burglary, 85% rise in solved cases in 3 US states.
2 categories added: interpersonal (offender knows victim, steals something significant) and opportunistic (inexperienced young offender).
Suggests TDP wider application than original assumption.
Describe a limitation of top-down profiling (TDP), in terms of the evidence of which it’s based on.
Profiling developed using interviews with 36 murderers.
24 organised, 12 disorganised.
Canter- sample was poor- FBI selection wasn’t random, small sample, didn’t include different kinds of offenders.
No set questions, each interview different, can’t compare.
Suggests TDP doesn’t have a sound scientific basis.
