Top Down Approach Offender Profiling

Question 1

What is offender profiling

Answer 1

A tool employed by the police to narrow down the list of likely suspects

Question 2

What idea is offender profiling based on

Answer 2

The idea that characteristics of the offended can be deduced from the details of the offence & crime scene

Question 3

Profiling methods vary, but what do they usually involve

Answer 3

• careful scrutiny of the crime scene
• analysis of evidence e.g. witness reports, to generate a hypothesis about the character of the offender
  Eg. For the character: Age, background, occupation

Question 4

What’s the top down approach

Answer 4

Templates of the organised / disorganised offender are pre-existing in the mind of the profiler. Evidence from the crime scene & other details of the crime / victim / context are then used to fit the offender as either organised or disorganised

Question 5

What is an organised offender / their characteristic

Answer 5

• they show evidence of having planned the crime in advance:
  The victim is deliberately targeted & will often reveal the fact that the killer / rapist has a preference for a certain type of victim.
• they maintain a high levell of control during the crime / operate w surgical, detached precision

Question 6

What’s the crime scene of an organised offender like

Answer 6

Little evidence left behind at the scene

Question 7

Characteristics of organised offenders

Answer 7

• above average intelligence
• in a skilled, professional occupation
• socially & sexually competent (often married / have kids)

Question 8

What are disorganised offenders

Answer 8

These show little evidence of planning - the crime may be spontaneous
Very little control

Question 9

What’s the crime scene of a disorganised offender like?

Answer 9

Tends to be messy with lots of evidence
Reflects impulsive nature of the attack
Body usually left at the scene

Question 10

Characteristics of a disorganised offender

Answer 10

• lower than average intelligence
• unskilled in work / unemployed
• history of sexual dysfunction / failed relationships
• usually life alone / close to the murder

Question 11

What’s bad about top-down profilings application

Answer 11

Only applies to certain crimes
E.g. rape, arson, cult killings, murders that involve macabre practices e.g. sadistic torture, dissection etc
Common offences. E.g. burglary don’t reveal much about the offender by the crime scene

Question 12

What’s bad about the organised / disorganised offender distinction? How is it a weak sample etc

Answer 12

• developed based on interviews with 36 serial killers in the USA.
  Therefore too small / unrepresentative of a sample to base a typology system

Question 13

Why is top drown profiling less valid bc of what it was based on

Answer 13

It was developed based on the 36 sexually motivated serial killers like Ted Bundy, and Charles Manson
Canter argued that self report data from convicted killers isn’t valid to rely on

Question 14

• the organised disorganised distinction is overly simplistic: who suggested there’s other types of serial killers

Answer 14

Holmes’s (1989) suggests that there are 4 types of serial killer; visionary serial killer, mission, hedonistic, and power serial killers

Question 15

What’s a visionary serial killer

Answer 15

They kill because God or the Devil is directing them to

Question 16

What’s a mission serial killer

Answer 16

Kill to eradicate a group of people they consider to be undesirable

Question 17

What’s a hedonistic serial killer

Answer 17

They kill for the thrill

Question 18

What’s a power serial killer

Answer 18

Kill to have complete control over the victims

Question 19

What did Canter find when he analysed data from 100 murders in the USA

Answer 19

The foundings suggested evidence of a distinct organised type (it was analysed with reference to characteristics typical of organised and disorganised killers)
There was no evidence for the disorganised type which undermines the classification system