Top down approach offender profiling Flashcards
What’s the purpose of offender profiling
help police in catching the offender
What do police do when identifying individuals
look at the profile and focus their resources and time on specific types of individuals
What’s the first type of offender profiling
Top down
Who first developed the top down approach
FBI
Who did the FBI examine and interview
people who had committed heinous crimes
What are the heinous crimes the interviewees committed
serial killing
rape murders
Why did the FBI gather data on the people they interviewed
to develop a general description of people who commit these types of crimes
How many people did the FBI interview
36
How many groups were the interviewees organised into
2 groups organised and disorganised
What were organised criminals classified as
- Intelligent
- socially and sexually competent
- didn’t live alone
- planned their attacks
What were disorganised criminals classified as
Not intelligent
socially and sexually incompetent
lived alone
were spontaneous to their attacks
What’s a strength of Top Down approach
FBI were able to examine new crime scenes with insight into the behaviour of the individual
What Netflix show is linked to Top Down approach
mind hunters portrays the early days of FBI criminal profiling
What’s a disadvantage of the Top down approach
the crime is self reported so it lacks validity
What’s a disadvantage of the sample the FBI used
completely restricted to these 36 convicted felons findings cannot be generalised to the public
