top-down approach Flashcards
Founding evidence
FBI in 1970s
Interviewed 36 sexually-motivated murderers, concluded data that was categorised into organised and disorganised offenders
Organised offender
Planned the crime in advance, victim is targeted and killer usually has a type. Offender has high degree of control, little evidence left at seen.
- intelligent, skilled proffesioinal
- social and sexual competence
- married with a family
Disorganised
Spontaneous crimes, body usually left at crime scene
- Low IQ
- Unskilled or unemployed
- sexual dysfunction/ failed relationships
- live alone and close to where offence took place
Profile construction
- Data assimilation
- Crime scene classification
- Crime reconstruction
- Profile generation
Research support
Canter (2004)
Small space analysis (identify correlations) 100 US serial killers. Co-occurence of 39 aspects of killings e.g. torture or restraint, weapon used
Analysis revealed subset of features - matched FBI typology for organised offenders
- has validity
Offender types not mutually exclusive
Godwin (2002) Difficult to classify killers as one or the other type, killer may have contrasting characteristics.
Organised-disorganised typology is probably more of a continuum
Wider application
Meketa (2017) Applied top-down approach to burglary, led to 85% rise in solved cases across 3 US states.
2 new categories:
opportunistic= inexperienced young offender
interpersonal= knows victim, steals something of significance
Flawed evidence
FBI interviewed 36 murderers, 25 were serial killers. 24 organised 12 were disorganised. Canter - sample was small, all similar offenders, interview had no standardised questions.
No sound, scientific basis
Personality
Approach based upon principle of behavioural consistency. Mischel (1968) people’s behaviour is driven more by the situation than personality. Behavioural patterns at a crime scene tells little about everyday life
