AO1

• An organised offender commits a premeditated murder, usually of a targeted stranger, where they bring constraints and weapons to the crime and leave few clues/evidence. They tend to lead an ordered life and kill after a critical life event. E.g Ted Bundy.
• An organised offender will likely have average and above IQ, be married or co-habitating and have a high skilled job. They tend to be socially and sexually competent but experience anger or depression at the time of the murder. They also likely follow media coverage of their crime.
• A disorganised offender commits a murder in a moment of passion, usually somebody they know and likely live nearby the crime scene. They tend to be more likely to leave evidence behind such as blood, weapons and semen and show no evidence of premeditation. They also tend to display random, unorganised behaviour.
• A disorganised offender will likely be sexually and social incompetent and may have been sexually or physically abused in their childhood. They are likely unemployed or working an unskilled job and live alone near the crime scene. They may be frightened or confused during the attack.
• Offender profiling is when forensic psychologists use previous knowledge, computer databases and evidence from the scene to build a profile of the offender and their characteristics, which shortens the list of potential subjects.
• Douglas and Ressler: Top-Down typology

  They investigated and identified major characteristics of serious offenders and how they differed from non-offenders. They interviewed 36 serial killers and sex murderers in American prisons. These interviews were long and unstructured with information collected about the crime scene. This information about the crime scene shows that the crimes were either premeditated or sudden. This shows that the crime scene can be used the same way as fingerprinting to help identify the murderer as it shows whether they are organised or disorganised.
• Steps for constructing an FBI profile: Top-Down

  1. Review evidence from the crime scene
  2. Classify the scene as organised or disorganised
  3. Reconstruct crime scene based on the hypothesis
  4. Generate a profile of likely offender including demographic and characteristics.
• Problems with typological profiling

  • subjective judgements from various forensic psychologists.
  • incomplete data
  • assumptions about stable types, the same murderer isn't always organised