Offender profiling : Top down approach Flashcards
What is offender profiling ?
Its an investigative technique used to narrow down the list of suspects by identifying the major physical and behavioural aspects of the offender using analysis of the crimes they commit
What are the 2 types of approaches to offender profiling ?
Top down approach
Bottom up approach
What does the top down approach do
They work down from the crime scene so they collect data from the scene and decide on a category that suits it best
The profiler has pre-existing templates of an organised or disorganised offender in their mind. The evidence from the crime scene and other details of the crime are then used to fit into either of the pre-existing categories and determine whether the offender is one type of the other
when and where did the top down approach begin and is used?
It originated in the united states in around the 70’s.
It is used for more serious crimes such as murder and rape
what are the 2 ways the crime scene is classified to describe the type of offender ?
Organised offender
Disorganised offender
Describe an organised offender
Crime scene:
- Planned
- Victim - targeted stranger
- use of control - restrains
- Aggression before death
- Body removed from crime scene
- weapon and evidence absent
Characteristics:
- Higher than average IQ
- Skilled occupation
- controlled mood
- living with a partner
- limited change in behaviour after the crime/ volunteers info, returns to crime scene
- mobile - car
Interview techniques:
- Direct strategies/ questions
Describe a disorganised offender
Crime scene :
- Spontaneous, little evidence of planning
- victim known by the offender
- little control
- Sexual / sadistic acts before death
- Evidence and body present at the crime scene
Characteristics:
- Less than average IQ
- unskilled
- Living alone
- Major change in behaviour after the crime
- Lives near crime but may be unemployed
Interview Techniques:
- Empathise with offender
- Indirectly introduce evidence
What are the FBIs 4 stages for top down profiling ?
- Data assimilation - Investigators gather info from multiple sources e.g. photos, police reports
- Crime scene classification - Decide whether the scene represents an organised or disorganised offender
- Crime reconstruction - Hypothesis are generated about what happened during the crime eg. victim behaviour, crime sequence
- Profile generation - profilers construct a sketch of the offender including demographic and physical characteristics, behavioural habits
Strengths of the Top Down approach to offender profiling
P - Supporting Evidence
E - Canter et al
E- Conducted an analysis of 100 US murders committed by different serial killers using a technique called smallest space analysis. This revealed that the features of the serial killers matched the FBIs typology for organised offenders
L - Therefore, supports the top down approach as it is effective at identifying the offender
P - Supporting Evidence
E - McCrary and Grant
E - Used the top down approach to develop a profile of the man responsible for the murder of many prostitutes in the late 1980’s. The profile ended up being a close match who was eventually found guilty
L - Therefore, there’s further support to show that it is effective.
Weaknesses of using the top down approach to offender profiling
P - It isn’t as effective as research suggests
E - This is because it can only be used for extreme crimes such as murder and rape.
E - This means it is not effective when looking at the more common crimes that happen more often.
L - Therefore, it isn’t that effective as it cant always be used
H - Meketa - found that the top down approach has now been applied to crimes such as burglary leading to an 85% increase in solved cases in 3 US states
P - Conflicting evidence
E - Godwin
E - its hard to classify an offender as organised or disorganised as they may have characteristics that that overlap and are contrasting. For example they may have a high IQ but leave the body at the crime scene.
L - Therefore, this is a weakness because the top down approach to offender profiling may not produce accurate profiles due to some characteristics of the offender contrasting with the different categories
