| What is offender profiling? | Tool used by police to solve crimes by narrowing the filed of enquiry and the list of likely suspects by compiling a profile of the offender, to hypothesise about thier probable characteristics. |
| What is the top-down approach ? | A USA approach established by the FBI behavioural science unit. Data from in-depth interviews with 36 sexually-motivated serial killers to build a template. Created 2 types of classifications that they would match people to: organised and disorganised |
| 4 characteristics of organised? | Plans crimes in advanced
Deliberatly target's victims
Little evidence left beind
Above average IQ |
| 4 characteristics of disorganised? | Little evidence of planning
Implusive acts
Body often left in place
Lower than average IQ |
| 4 steps of FBI proflie construction? | 1. Data assimilation
2. Ccrime scene classifications
3. Crime reconstruction
4. Profile generation |
| What is data assimilation? | Reviews the evidence (crime scene photos, pathology reports) |
| What is crime scene classifications? | Classifies offender typology as either organised or disorganised |
| What is crime reconstruction? | Hypotheses in terms of sequence of events |
| What is profile generation? | Hypotheses related to offender, eg. demographics, background, physical characteristics, behaviour |
| What is the bottom-up approach? | Aims to generate a picture of the offedner through systematic analysis of evidence.
Does not have fixed typoloeis, the proflie is more data-driven and is more specific to each crime.
More grounded in psychological theory. |
| Waht are the 4 steps of geographical profiling? | Crime mapping
Centre of gravity
Jeopardy surface
Classification |
| What is crime mapping? | Using information to do with location of linked crime scenes and make infeneces about their likley home as serial offenders often restrict their work to geogrpahical areas they are familar with. |
| What is centre of gravity | Where the criminal opperate, which likley includes their base |
| What is jeopardy surface? | Educated guesses about where the offender is likley to strike next |
| What is classification? | Criminals are classed as either marauders (operate closely to their home base) or commuters (likely to travel a distance away from their base) |
| What is investigative psychology ? | Applying statistical procecures and psycholgoical theory to analyse crime scene evidence, to establish patterns of behavoiur that are likley to occur - helps to see if the series of offences are linked |
| What is interpersonal coherence? | The way the offender behaves at the scene of crime reflects thier everyday behaviour. Eg: rapists maintain maximum control. |
| What is forensic awareness? | Individuals who may have been interrogated by the police before may be more mindful for their acts. |
| A weakness of the top-down approach? | - The way the typology was developed.
-The FBI came up with the categories disorganised and organised after an interview with 36 sexually motivated serial killers. These serial killers behaviour are quite extreme and rare as well as the sample size being small meaning that it is an unrepresentative sample.
-The serial killers could have acted under a social-desirability bias and lie to make them more likelable as they were psychopaths, making it hard to generlise to 'normal' criminals
-Lacks internal validity due to the data collection from a small smaple, lowering external validity as well. |
| A weakness of the top-down approach? | -Only applied to particular crimes
-Makes hypotheses based on evidence left at the scene, this type of evidence best suits murders, home invasions and rapes, however, it struggles with crimes that has not a lot of evidence left behind.
-Can be seen with petty theft and arson, not enough evidence to create a profile surrounding the criminal
-The approach lacks generlisbaility as it is only applicable to specific crimes |
| A weakness of the top-down approach? | -Too simplisitc
-Dahmer has a very specific type (Asian/Black teenage boys) which fits in more with the organised characteristics and Bundy lost a lot of control towards the end of his killing spree, fitting in more with the disorganised type.
-Canter analysed 100 murder in the USA with reference to the organised/disorganised characteristic and have hfound a lot of evidence for organised but less of disorganised, undermining the classification system.
-Approach is too reductionist as it oversimplifies a complex phenomena. |
| A strength of the bottom-up approach? | -Evidence fo the approach to offender profiling
-For example, John Duffy’s case which was investigated by David Canter using geographical profiling and investigative psychology to gather specific and accurate detail surrounding Duffy’s profile which allowed for the subsequent arrest.
-Used crime mapping to find Duffy's centre of gravity, which was Kilburn, and found used interpersonal coherance of the nature of the bondage of the rape scenes to understand that he was seperated and had fantacies of bondage.
-Lack generlisability due to the case study, hard to apply to a wide range of peopel |
| A strength of the bottom-up approach? | -More scientific and objective than the top-down approach
-Due to the evidence being more grounded and being more data-based, the approach doesn’t force offenders into specific categories which could lead to a reductionist approach to profile generation.
-Investigative psychology now includes suspect interviewing and examination of material presented in court - supports use in judicial process
-More holistic and allows for increase vality in comparison to the top-dwon approach, more evidence based |
| A weakness of the bottom-up? | -It has significant faliures
-Rachel Nickell case study in which the true criminal was not found until 16 years after the crime as they had ruled him out originally due to him not fitting the height suggestions of the profile they generated.
-Due to the crime only happening once, they were unable to gather a lot of information about the criminal through the usual techniques of crime mapping, meaning that they couldn’t establish any patterns that created personal data to help build a profile. Lead to inaccurate ideas of the criminall, causing the investigation to be drawn out
-Bottom-up approach is based on the assumption of a criminla which leads to a less accurate picture, more suited to serial offenders |
