The top-down approach Flashcards
what is offender profiling?
Offender profiling is a behavioural and analytical tool intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile characteristics of unknown offenders.
top-down approach
Originated in USA in 1970’s by FBI. Drew up on data gathered from in-depth interviews with 36 sexually-motivated killers including Ted Bundy. They then concluded that the data could be categorised into organised or disorganised crimes/murders. Each category has a certain characteristic which means if data from a crime scene matched some characteristics of one category, we could then predict other likely characteristics. The aim is to narrow the field of likely suspects.
characteristics of organised offender
- Planned crime in advance
- Victim is targeted
- Offender maintains control during crime
- Little evidence left at scene
- Above-average intelligence
- Socially and sexually competent
- Usually married and may even have children
characteristics of disorganised offender
- Little evidence of planning (spontaneous)
- Body usually still at scene
- Very little control
- Lower than average IQ
- Be in unskilled work or unemployed
- History of sexual dysfunction and failed relationships
- Tend to live alone and near to where offence took place
Four main stages in construction of FBI profile
- Data assimilation – profiler reviews evidence
- Crime scene classification – as either organised or disorganised
- Crime reconstruction – hypotheses in terms of sequence of events, behaviour of victim
- Profile generation – hypotheses related to likely offender
Evaluation of top-down approach (brief)
strength - support for distinct category (canter)
strength - wider application e.g. burglary
weakness - flawed evidence
strengths of top-down approach
😊 there is research support for a distinct organised category of offender. Canter et al (2004) conducted an analysis of 100 US murders each committed by a different serial killer. A technique called smallest-sample analysis was used to assess the co-occurrence of 39 aspects of serial killing. Such as, whether there was torture or restraint, whether there was an attempt to conceal the body, form of murder weapon used and the cause of death. This analysis revealed that there does seem to be a subset of features of many serial killing which matched the FBI’s typology for organised offenders. This suggests that a key component of the FBI typology approach has some validity. However, many studies suggest the organised and disorganised types are not mutually exclusive. Godwin (2002) argues that in reality it’s difficult to classify killers as one type or the other. A killer may have multiple contrasting characteristics. This suggests that the organised-disorganised typology may be more of a continuum.
😊 top-down approach has wider application. It can be adapted to other types of crimes such as burglary. Critics of top-down approach have claimed it can only be applied to a limited number of crimes, such as sexually motivated murder. However, Meketa (2017) reports that top-down profiling has recently been applied to burglary, leading to an 85% rise in solved cases in three US states. The detection method retains the organised-disorganised distinction but also adds interpersonal offender (knows their victim and steals something significant) and opportunistic. This suggests that the top-down approach has a wider application than was originally assumed.
weakness of top-down approach
🙁 the top-down approach is based on flawed evidence. FBI profiling was developed using interviews with 36 murderers in the US. 25 of which were serial killers. At the end of the process, 24 of these individuals were classified as organised murderers and 12 were disorganised. Canter et al have argued that the sample was poor as the FBI did not select a random or even a large sample nor did the sample include different types of offenders. There was no standard set of questions so each interview was different and therefore not comparable. This suggests that top-down profiling does not have a sound, scientific basis.
