Top down approach Flashcards
What is offender profiling?
Investigative tool used by police when solving crimes
Aims to narrow list of suspects
–> Careful scrutiny of crime scene
–> Analysis of other evidence
–> Generates hypothesis about offender
Where did the top down approach originate from?
Originated from US due to work carried out by FBI in 70s
–> Interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial killers
Determined data could be spilt into 2 categories.
What were the categories that was determined from the data?
Organised vs Disorganised
certain characteristics –> predictions made
Profiles gather data, then assign to a category –> Typology approach
What are the assumptions of the top down approach?
Based on concepts that serious offenders have certain signature –> correlates to social/psychological characteristics
State features of organised criminal:
Premeditated
Have a type
High levels of control –> no evidence left
Above average intelligence
Skilled/professional employment
Socially/sexually competent
Married (possibly with children)
Abduct, kill, dispose of victim in 3 different areas.
State features of disorganised criminal:
Little/no evidence of planning
Spontaneous –> use brute force
Crime scene reflect impulsivity
Below average intelligence
History of sexual/relationship dysfunction
What are the 4 main stages of constructing a profile?
- Data assimilation -> review evidence
- Crime scene classification -> organised vs disorganised
- Crime reconstruction -> hypothesis of sequence of events
- Profile generation -> hypothesis related to the likely offender
Evaluation of top down approach:
Research shows it’s useful
Copson (1995): Conducted questionnaire on 184 US police officers
82% = useful
90% use it again
HOWEVER:
few suggested other methods =better
Only useful for extreme cases not for white collar crimes
Sample size = small, not representative
Evaluation fro top down approach
Research support for distinct organised categories of offenders:
Canter (2004) analysis of 100 US murders committed by different serial killers
–> Smallest space analysis –> statistical technique identifying correlations across different samples of behaviour.
Analysis used to assess current occurrence of 39 aspects of serial killings (torture restraint, attempt to conceal murder weapon)
-> subset of features of many serial killings matched FBI typology for organised offenders
COUNTERPOINT:
No evidence for disorganised offenders
Many studies suggest organised/disorganised crimes not mutually exclusive
Godwin (2002) –> difficult to classify killers as 1 or other
Multiple contrasting characteristics
E.g: High intelligence but commit spontaneous murder
Suggest typology continuum rather than discrete data.
Evaluation of top down approach
Wider application:
Adapted to other crimes
Meketa (2017) Top down applied to burglary –> 85% rise in solved cases
+ 2 new categories
–> Interpersonal: knows victim
–> Opportunistic: inexperienced young offender
Suggests approach has wider application than originally assumed.
Previously thought only applicable to extreme crimes
Evaluation of top down approach:
Poor sample
Based on interview conducted with 36 murderers (25 serial killers)
Then classified as either organised/disorganised
Unrepresentative
Not random/large
No standard questions –> no comparison possible
Self-report not ideal given sample
Cannot formulate universal laws
No scientific basis
Evaluation of top down approach:
Based on outdated model of personality:
Alison et al (2002)
Typology classification system based on assumption that offenders have patterns of behaviours + motivations that remain consistent over situations + time
Untrue –> people change
with experience can gain new insights/techniques
