offender profiling: top-down approach

• offender profiling/criminal profiling


  a behavioural and analytical tool that is intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown criminals. This may include characteristics such as personality, age, race, marital status etc...
• the top-down approach


  refers to where profilers start with a pre-established typology and work down in order to assign offenders to one of two categories: organised or disorganised, based on witness accounts and evidence from the crime scene.
• organised offender


  an offender who shows evidence of planning, targets the victim and tends to be socially and sexually competent with higher than average intelligence.
• disorganised offender


  an offender who shows little evidence of planning, leaves clues and tends to be socially and sexually incompetent with lower than average intelligence.
• where did the top-down approach originate?


  this approach originated in the united states as a result of work carried out by the FBI in the 1970s gathered from in-depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial killers including Ted Bundy.
• characteristics of organised offenders

  • evidence of having planned the crime in advance - victim is deliberately targeted and will reflect the killer's type.
  • they maintain a high degree of precision and control, operating with almost detached surgical precision.
  • there is little evidence or clues left at the crime scene.
  • they tend to be above-average intelligence, in a skilled occupation.
  • socially and sexually competent.
• characteristics of disorganised offenders

  • show little evidence of planning, suggesting the offence may have been spontaneous.
  • clues left e.g. body - reflecting lack of control and planning.
  • 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 relatively close to where the offence took place.
• constructing an FBI profile (dead cows can't poop)

  1. data assimilation - profiler reviews evidence (e.g. crime scene photographs)
  2. crime scene classification - as either organised or disorganised.
  3. crime reconstruction - hypothesis in terms of sequence of events
  4. profile generation - hypotheses related to the likely offender
• evaluation of the top-down approach


  strength- research support for organised offenders

  weakness - can only be used for certain crimes

  weakness - sometimes a crime does not fit into either organised or disorganised

  weakness - based on outdated models of personality
• strength - research support for organised offenders


  canter analysed 100 US murders and used smallest space analysis to statistically correlate different types of behaviour - 39 aspects/behaviours of serial killers were analysed and it was found that there was a group of behaviours which matched the FBIs typology of organised offenders = good validity as it supports the idea that these 2 types of offender exist and are distinct and can be used to accurately profile offenders.
• weakness - can only be used for certain crimes


  the technique was developed using just 36 interviews with sexually motivated serial killers, so it is argued that it can only be used with this type of crime, where the offender reveals a lot of information about themselves - cannot be used to solve other more common crimes like burglary where the offender will not reveal much about themselves = reduced generalisability and may not always be an appropriate and effective way of profiling possible suspects for all types of crime.
• weakness - sometimes a crime does not fit into either organised or disorganised


  behaviour describing each typification isn't mutually exclusive - variety of combinations can occur in murder scene- Godwin asks how investigators classify killer with high intelligence and sexual competence commits a spontaneous murder where the body is left at scene - prompted others to propose detailed typological models = Holmes suggests 4 types of serial killers - visionary, mission-oriented, hedonistic, power/control = limited application in real world crime scenes as it is too simplistic.
• weakness - based on outdated models of personality

  the typology classification system is based on the assumption that offenders have patterns of behaviour and motivations that remain consistent across situations and contexts - Alison et al suggested that this approach was naive and informed by old-fashioned models of personality that see behaviour as being driven by stable dispositional traits rather than external factors that may be continuously changing = top-down approach likely to have poor validity when identifying possible suspects or trying to predict their next move.