offender profiling: bottom up Flashcards
bottom up
builds a picture of a potential criminal from facts+stats collected by previous crimes of the same type
-no intuition is used
-british approach
-investigate approach=bottom up developed by david canter
eager (1999)
offender+victims intercations
-canters BP approach is based on key assumptions on interactions between offender+victims:
1. interpersonal cohernece: way they act w victim+ppl in everyday lives=same
2. time+place: of crime scene links to their own place of residence/employement
3. criminal charatcterstics: characterstics about them helps classify them
4. criminal career: crimes tend to be committed in simialr way by offenders+can show how their criminal activity will develop
5. forensic awareness: understanding of police investigation so likely to have had previous encounters w criminal justice system
geographical profiling
-considers location+time of crime
-canter+youngs(2008): it will give clues about living habitats of offender. 4 main principles:
1. locatedness: several locations may be involved in crime eg attack loc,dispose loc etc
2. systematic crime location choice: assume crime scenes arent random. offender will be familiar
3. centrality:crime scenes cluster. 2 types of offender-commuter+maurder
4. comperative case analysis: assumes crimes r committed by same person=^ precision of geographical profilling
centrality two types of offenders
canter+larlin (1993)
-maurders: commit crime close to home
-commuters: away from home, big areas
geographical profiling key study
david canter-
john duffy ‘railway rapist’
-assisted in capture of railway rapist
-violent sex offender committed crimes between 1982+1985 near railways. 3 women dead
-put a profile together using geographical+personality characterstics +matched 29 yr old john duffy
-he worked+revealed his accumplise david mulcahy=both served life imprisonment
rossmo
1997
-offender behaviour has ‘hunting patterns’ + via examining locations of crime scenes+relationship to each other in space=tells us more about where criminal lives
ao3-strengths
canter on railway rapist
-real world application
-helped stop their violent activity
-BUT its a case study+not controlled enviroment
-its been applied to historical cases+manages to work= theres represenataives in this particular case
-also case were hasnt worked: rachel nichels killer
ao1/3
circle theory
-85% of offenders live inside circle encompasing crimes
-supprots geographical profiling
ao3
comparison to top down
-it can apply to more then 1 type of crime=more useful
-uses objective methods+not intuition eg location
-can generalise to diff types of crime
-HOWEVER, stats info from other crimes isnt always available+underreporting problem
ao3-strength
abumere(2012)
-improved understanding of offender+confirmed their ideas on offender
-75% police officers said they found profiling useful in making prediction about crime
-BUT nertherland police reported info=too general+follow up work was too expensive
ao3 limitation
shannah 2008
-responses to questionaires sent out by criminal investigation depart to evaluate effectiveness of profiling=mainly negative
-this was when it wasnt working, otherwise confident in their potential
weakness
cross cultural bias
-both tp+bu made in uk/western society so might not apply to other countries w/out modification
limitation
copson 1995
-carried out survey on cops using OP
-advice only helped catch 3% of offenders
-BUT, it was useful in 83% of cases where it was used but only offered direct help in solving crimes in 14% of cases
support
-snook et al(2008): number of cases that use OP is rising. police is starting to consider its credability
-pinizotto(1984): oct 1992 only 17% actually usefful in identifying suspects. 77% respondants reported the profile helped them focus on the investigation
