Offender profiling:The top down approach Flashcards
(8 cards)
Offender profiling
Offender profiling is an investigative tool employed by the police when solving crimes, the main aim of which is to narrow the list of likely suspects. Professional profilers will often be called upon to work alongside the police especially during high-profile murder cases. Methods vary, but the compiling of a profile will usually involve careful scrutiny of the crime scene and analysis of the other evidence (including witness reports) in order to generate hypotheses about the probable characteristics of the offender (their age, background, occupation, etc.).
The American approach
The top-down approach to profiling originated in the United States as a result of work carried out by the FBI in the 19705. More specifically, the FB’s Behavioural Science Unit drew upon data gathered from in-depth interviews with 36 sexually-motivated murderers including Ted Bundy (see below) and Charles Manson. They then concluded that the data could be categorised into organised or disorganised crimes/murders. Each category had certain characteristics (described below) which meant that if, in a future situation, the data from a crime scene matched some of the characteristics of one category, we could then predict other characteristics that would be likely. This could then be used to find the offender.
Offender profilers who use the top-down method will collect data about a murder (characteristics of the murderer, the crime scene, etc.) and then decide on the category the data best fits.
Organised and disorganised offenders
The organised and disorganised distinction is based on the idea that serious offenders have
certain signature ways of working’ (often referred to as their modus operandi) and these generally correlate with a particular set of social and psychological characteristics that relate to the individual.
Organised offenders show evidence of having planned the crime in advance. The victim is deliberately targeted and this suggests that the killer or rapist has a type of victim they seek out.
The offender maintains a high degree of control during the crime and may operate with almost
detached surgical precision. There is little evidence or clues left behind at the scene. They tend to
be of above-average intelligence, in a skilled, professional occupation and are socially and sexually competent. They are usually married and may even have children.
In contrast, disorganised offenders show little evidence of planning, suggesting that their offences may be spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment acts. The crime scene tends to reflect the impulsive nature of the attack - the body is usually still at the scene and there appears to have been very little control on the part of the offender. They tend to have a lower-than-average IQ, be in unskilled work or unemployed, and often have a history of sexual dysfunction and failed relationships. They tend to live alone and often relatively close to where the offence took place.
constructing an FBI profile
There are four main stages in the construction of an FBI profile:
1. Data assimilation - the profiler reviews the evidence (crime scene photographs, pathology reports, witness reports, etc.).
2. Crime scene classification - as either organised or disorganised.
3. Crime reconstruction - hypotheses in terms of sequence of events, behaviour of the victim, etc.
4. Profile generation - hypotheses related to the likely offender, e.g. of demographic background, physical characteristics, behaviour, etc.
strength-research support
One strength of the top-down approach is that there is support for a distinct organised category of offender.
In order to test the organised-disorganised typology which is central to the top-down approach, David Canter et al. (2004) conducted an analysis of 100 US murders each committed by a different serial killer. A technique called smallest space analysis was used - a statistical technique that identifies correlations across different samples of behaviour. In this case the analysis was used in order to assess the co-occurrence of 39 aspects of serial killings. This included such things as whether there was torture or restraint, whether there was an attempt to conceal the body, the form of murder weapon used and the cause of death. This analysis revealed that there does seem to be a subset of features of many serial killings which matched the FBl’s typology for organised offenders.
This suggests that a key component of the FBI typology approach has some validity.
Counterpoint However, many studies suggest that the organised and disorganised types are not mutually exclusive. There are a variety of combinations that occur at any given murder scene. For instance, Maurice Godwin (2002) argues that, in reality, it is difficult to classify killers as one or the other type. A killer may have multiple contrasting characteristics, such as high intelligence and sexual competence, but commits a spontaneous murder leaving the victim’s body at the crime scene.
This suggests that the organised-disorganised typology is probably more of a continuum.
Strength-Wider application
Another strength of top-down profiling is that it can be adapted to other kinds of crime, such as burglary.
Critics of top-down profiling have claimed that the technique only applies to a limited number of crimes, such as sexually-motivated murder. However, Tina Meketa (2017) reports that top-down profiling has recently been applied to burglary, leading to an 85% rise in solved cases in three US states. The detection method retains the organised-disorganised distinction but also adds two new categories: interpersonal (offender usually knows their victim and steals something of significance) and opportunistic (generally inexperienced young offender).
This suggests that top-down profiling has wider application than was originally assumed.
limitation-flawed evidence
One limitation of top-down profiling is the evidence on which it is based.
As we have seen, FBI profiling was developed using interviews with 36 murderers in the US - 25 of which were serial killers, the other 11 being single or double murderers. At the end of the process, 24 of these individuals were classified as organised offenders and 12 were disorganised. Canter et al. (above) have argued that the sample was poor - the FBI agents did not select a random or even a large sample nor did the sample include different kinds of offender. There was no Standard set of questions so each interview was different and therefore not really comparable.
This suggests that top-down profiling does not have a sound, scientific basis.
modus operandi
a distinctive way they commit crimes-criminal signature
