The Top-Down Approach Flashcards
The top-down approach
Profilers start with a pre-established typology and work down in order to assign offenders to one of two categories based on witness accounts and crime scene evidence.
Organised Offender
Shows evidence of planning the crime in advance. Victim is a deliberate target and will often reflect the fact the offender has ‘type’.
Above average intelligence.
Sexually and socially competent.
Disorganised Offender
Show little evidence of planning - suggest spontaneity.
Lower than average intelligence.
Unskilled work or unemployment.
Often sexually and socially incompetent.
4 stages of constructing an FBI profile:
1) Data Assimilation - profiler reviews the evidence
2) Crime scene classification - organised or disorganised
3) Crime reconstruction - hypotheses in terms of sequence of events, behaviour of victim etc.
4) Profile generation - hypotheses related to the likely Offender.
Data assimilation
One of the 4 stages of conducting an FBI profile.
The profiler reviews evidence e.g. Crime scene photographs, pathology reports etc.
Crime scene classification
One of the 4 stages of constructing and FBI profile.
Classifying and organised or disorganised offender.
Crime reconstruction
One of the 4 main stages in the construction of an FBI profile.
Hypotheses in terms of sequence of events, behaviour of the victim etc.
Profile generation
One of the 4 stages of constructing an FBI profile.
Hypotheses related to the likely offender.
E.g. Of demographic background, physical characteristics, behaviour, etc.
Offender profiling
A behavioural and analytical tool that is intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown criminals.
Canter (2004) - smallest space analysis
Analyses data from 100 murders in the USA.
Details of each examined, referencing 39 characteristics thought to be typical of organised and disorganised killers.
Findings suggest a distinct organised type.
