top down approach Flashcards
offender profiling
aims to narrow field of enquiry and list of likely suspects
compiling of profile usually involves careful scrutiny of crime scene and analysis of evidence to generate hypotheses about probably characteristics of offender
top down approach
originated in US and involves profilers starting with pre-established typology and working down to assign offenders to one of two categories based on witness accounts and evidence from crime scene
2 categories used to give insight into suspects usual criminal behaviour and tend to correlate with social and psychological characteristics of individual
organised offender
show evidence of having planned crime in advance and maintain high degree of control during crime, leaving little evidence behind at crime scene
tend to be above average intelligence, in a skilled, professional occupation and are socially and sexually competent, are usually married and may even have children
disorganised offender
show very little evidence of planning, suggesting offences may be spontaneous, impulsive nature of attack is reflected by crime scene which shows that offender is likely to have had little control over the offence
tend to have lower than average intelligence, be unemployed and often have history of sexual dysfunction and failed relationships
evaluation - only applies to some crimes
only applies to particular crimes where crime scene reveals important details about suspect - those that are most serious, such as rape and murder.
common offences such as burglary don’t lend themselves to profiling because resulting crime scene reveals very little about offender.
therefore, approach is limited as it can’t be used to identify all criminals.
evaluation - categories are too simplistic
categories of organised and disorganised offenders are too simplistic - behaviours in the two categories aren’t mutually exclusive
goodwin - asked police officers how they’d categorise suspect that’s highly intelligent and committed a spontaneous crime - couldn’t come up with sufficient method, suggesting categories are too rigid and can lead to false prosecution due to only a small number of offenders completely fitting into either category
suggests approach doesn’t acknowledge overlaps of characteristics so doesn’t account for offenders who may fall under both categories
evaluation - methodologically flawed
way in which it was developed is methodologically flawed
approach was based on responses made by 36 killers in US, some of which were first time murders and some who were serial killers - sample used is too small to influence development of an approach to offender profiling that will be used for high profile crime cases.
use of self report data from a sample of convicted killers may suggest that data was invalid due to element of social desirability bias.
constructing FBI profile
data assimilation - profiler reviews evidence
crime scene classification - as organised or disorganised
crime reconstruction - hypothesis in terms of sequence of events, behaviour of victim etc
profile generation - hypotheses related to likely offender
