Top Down Approach Evaluation Flashcards
1
Q
(Strength) - Tina Meketa
can be applied to other kinds of crime ( burglary)
A
- reports that top down profiling has recently been applied to burglary, leading to 85% rise in solved cases in three US states.
- the detection method retains the organized - disorganized categories but also adds in two other categories - interpersonal and opportunistic
- this suggests that top down profiling has wider application that was originally assumed.
2
Q
(Strength) - David canter - support for distinct organized category of offender.
A
- conducted analysis of 100 US murder each committed by a different serial killer.
- a statistical techniques was used that identifies correlations across different samples behaviour.
- analysis was used in order to access the co-occurrence of 39 aspects of serial killings including things such as using torture or restrain, cause of death and the form of weapon used.
- this analysis revealed that there does seem to be a subset of features of many serial killings which matched the FBI’S typology for organized offenders.
- this suggests that a key component of FBI. Typology approach has some validity.
3
Q
(Weakness) - Maurice Godwin - organized and disorganized types are not mutually exclusive.
A
- he argued that, in reality, it’s difficult to classify killers as one or the other. The killer may have multiple contrasting characteristics.
- a killer may have high intelligence and sexual competence, but commits aa spontaneous murder leaving the victims body at the crime scene.
- this suggests that the organized - disorganized typology is probably more of a continuum
4
Q
(Weakness) - low reliability - water Mitchel (1968)
A
- argues that people’s behaviour is much more driven on situation that they are in than by personality.
- behavioral patterns seen at a crime scene may tell us a little about how that individual behaves in everyday life.
- could lead to offender being misidentified or unidentified reducing reliability of top - down approach of profiling.
