Offencer Profiling Top Down

Question 1

Offender profiling

Answer 1

Investigative tool used by police-narrow down list of suspects
Carefully scrutinise the crime scene and analyse other evidence and generate a hypothesis about the possible offenders characteristics

Question 2

The top down approach(American approach)

Answer 2

Collect data from crime and decide which category it fits in
Data could be categorised as organised and disorganised
Carried out by FBI-interviewed 36 sexually motivated murderers including Ted Bundy and Charles Manson

Question 3

Organised offender

Answer 3

Evidence of planning, victim deliberately targeted, little evidence left behind, above average IQ, skilled professional job, married

Question 4

Disorganised offender

Answer 4

Little Evidence of planning, spontaneous, impulsive, body still at scene, little control, low IQ, sexual dysfunction,unskilled or unemployed, live alone, live close to where crime took place

Question 5

Constructing an FBI profile

Answer 5

1) data assimilation-review evidence. 2) crime scene classification; organised/disorganised.
3) crime reconstruction-hypothesis of sequence of events. 4) profile generation- hypothesis related to likely offender

Question 6

Strength of top down research evidence

Answer 6

Matched the typology for organised offenders- small space analysis- correlations
Canter 2004-analysed 100 US murders committed by different serial killers-Assessed the co-occurrence of 39 aspects of serial killings; torture, restraints, weapon, cause of death

Question 7

Strengths of the top down- wider application

Answer 7

Can be adapted to other types of crime
Meketa-applied to burglary. 85% rise in solved cases
2 more categories : interpersonal(know the victim) opportunistic(inexperienced young)

Question 8

Limitations of top down- not one or the other

Answer 8

Organised and disorganised aren’t mutually exclusive-lots of combos
Godwin -hard to classify as one or the other. May do both
Behaviour at crime scene tells us little about every day life of offender

Question 9

Limitations of the top down approach

Answer 9

36 murder interviews. 25 with serial killers, 11 were single/double murderers. 24 were organised, 12 were disorganised,
Canter argued the sample was poor -not random or large, didn’t include different types