Psychology - Forensic Psychology - Top Down approach

Question 1

What is offender profiling?

Answer 1

A tool employed by the police to narrow down the list of likely suspects for a crime

Question 2

What is offender profiling based on?

Answer 2

the idea that the characteristics of the offender can be deduced from details of the offence and crime scene

Question 3

What do offender profiling methods include?

Answer 3

Careful scrutiny of the crime scene and analysis of evidence including witness reports in order to generate a hypothesis about the probable characteristics of the offender

Question 4

What are the two types of offender profiling?

Answer 4

The top down approach and the bottom up approach

Question 5

What types of offender does the top down approach include?

Answer 5

Organised and disorganised offender

Question 6

What is used to fit into either of the two pre-existing categories in the top down approach?

Answer 6

Evidence from the crime scene and other details of the crime/victim/context

Question 7

What are organised offenders?

Answer 7

They have planned the crime in advance; the victim is deliberately targeted as a preference for a type of victim. A high level of control is maintained and there is little evidence

Question 8

What are the disadvantages of the top down approach?

Answer 8

• Top down profiling only applies to certain crimes and murder with macabre practices. - Type of offender distinction developed based on interviews with 36 serial killers which is too small and may not be valid - overly simplistic, Holmes (1989) - Canter et al (2004) didn’t find a disorganised type

Question 9

Why is the sample in looking at organised offender and disorganised offenders unrepresentative and unreliable?

Answer 9

It is unrepresentative due to the small sample size of 36 serial killers, as well as this it is unreliable because self report data is used from killers. Canter (2004) investigated this

Question 10

Canter (2004)

Answer 10

Has argued that it is not valid to rely on self report data from convicted serial killers when constructing a classification system

Question 11

Why does Holmes (1989) finds organised and disorganised distinction

Answer 11

Suggests there are four types of serial killers: visionary, mission, hedonistic and power