Top Down Approach Flashcards
Opening paragraph
In the top down approach an analysis of previous crime scenes creates a profile of the likely offender. A profiler can use this to narrow down the possible suspects. This approach relies on the intuition and beliefs of the profiler
The first stage is profiling inputs. The info collected at this stage includes a description of the crime scene, background info on the victim and details of the crime itself. Any possible suspects should not be considered as this could bias the info collected
In the second stage the profiler starts to make decisions about the data collected and organises it into meaningful patterns. The murder type and any time and location factors are considered
In the crime assessment stage the crime is classified as organised or disorganised. An organised type of offender commits a planned crime they are normally high in intelligence and socially competent. Any weapons used are normally hidden. A disorganised type commits an unplanned crime. The crime scene is left with many clues and the offender has little intelligence and competence. They do not engage with the victim
A profile is then constructed of the offender. The description can be used to help identify a strategy to help catch the offender. Then a written report is given to the investigating agency and people matching the profile are evaluated. If new evidence is found the process goes back to the beginning. If a suspect is found then the whole process is reviewed to make sure no mistakes were made and the conclusions made were legitimate.
Evaluation
A strength of the top down approach is that police who used these methods found it useful. Researchers questioned 184 police officers of whom 82% said the method was operationally useful and 90% said they would use the approach again. Although the technique may not result in the actual identification of the suspect, researchers believe it is still useful to use as it provides investigators with a different perspective and may also prevent wrongful conviction
Another reason researchers may find this approach useful is because it is holistic. When determining the profile, the profiler takes into account factors about the suspect that may have influenced them into committing the crime. They may look at their behaviour and psychological state and so the profiler tries to truly understand the offender as a whole. This therefore suggests that the method is certainly useful as it helps narrow down the suspects more easily
However a weakness of this method is that the basis of it is flawed. The original data in which the organised disorganised classification is based comes from interviews with 36 of the most dangerous and sexually motivated criminals including ted bundy. This data was used to identify key characteristics that would help identify a crime scene. Such individuals are not likely to be the source of reliable information.
Another problem is that if the interviews conducted were unstructured each criminal would have been asked different questions which makes the data collected unreliable. This therefore suggests that other counties can not replicate the research as an unstructured method may have been used which reduces reliability even further. There may also have been an issue with validity as some of the criminals interviewed were sex offenders and so it may not be valid to generalise the traits for sex offenders to all criminals. This therefore suggests that the method may be flawed as there are problems with both validity and reliability
Another weakness is that potential harm could be caused by using the top down approach. Smart offenders can read about how profiles are constructed and deliberately mislead profilers by providing misleading clues. They may also be able to frame others and this may lead to a wrongful conviction.
This therefore suggests that information on the techniques used by the police should be kept from the public to prevent situations like this from occurring
Another weakness arises when trying to distinguish between organised and disorganised types of offenders. The description of both types seem to be generalisations as they use phrases such as ‘tend to be’ and so have little meaning. A solution to this was to have a third category called the mixed offender but this seemed to lessen the usefulness even more as this category seemed to act as a dustbin category. In addition to this canter provides evidence that the classification has little basis in reality
They analysed aspects of serial killings and found no clear division between organised and disorganised. They instead found subsets of organised type crimes and little evidence for disorganised. This suggests that the method can be criticised as being deterministic. It may not always be possible to classify offenders into two categories. It is deterministic to assume that a criminal will perfectly fall into one of these categories. The approach fails to take into account the fact that unanticipated events may occur during the crime which causes the offender to change their behaviour. Therefore it may not be useful to use this approach
