10.2: Offender profiling

Question 1

Briefly explain the top-down approach to offender profiling (2 marks)

Answer 1

The top-down approach to offender profiling is that:
• conceptual categories/templates of organised and disorganised offender are pre-existing in
the mind of the profiler
• evidence from the crime scene and other details of the crime/victim/context are then used
to fit into either of the pre-existing categories and determine the offender as one type or the
other

Question 2

A researcher asked police whether they would use offender profiling to aid their investigations if they had the choice. They were asked to respond ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
What inferential statistical test could be used to test whether there was a statistically significant difference between the number who answered ‘yes’ and the number who answered ‘no’?
Justify your answer (2 marks)

Answer 2

The statistical test would be a Chi-squared test, as an independent groups design was used and the data was of nominal level, as it occurred as frequencies