bottom-up approach

• Canter and Heritage conducted an analysis of 66 sexual assault cases. Several behaviours were identified as common in different samples of behaviour. Each individual displayed a characteristic pattern of such behaviours- this can help establish if multiple offences were committed by the same person. This supports one of the basic principles of investigative psychology- that people are consistent in their behaviour.
• However, case linkage depends on the database and this will only consist of historical crimes that were solved. The fact that they have been solved suggests they may have been cases that were straightforward to link. This suggests investigative psychology may tell us little about cases that have few links between them and therefore remain unsolved.
• Lundrigan and Canter collated information from 120 murder cases. Smallest space analysis revealed spatial consistency in the behaviour of the killers.
• Lundrigan and Canter:

  The location of each body disposal site created a ‘centre of gravity’ presumably because offenders go in different directions each time they dispose of a body, but in the end all these different sites created a circle effect around their home. The offender’s home was invariably located in the centre of the pattern. This supports the view that geographical information can be used to identify an offender.
• Geographical profiling may not be sufficient on its own. Its success is reliant on the quality of data that the police can provide. Unfortunately, recording of crime is not always accurate. This calls into question the utility of an approach that relies on the accuracy of geographical data.
• Critics also argue that even if all the geographical information is correct, there are other factors that are just as important in creating a profile. This suggests that geographical information alone may not always lead to the successful capture of an offender.
• Investigative psychology= matches details from the crime scene with statistical analysis of typical offender behaviour patterns
• Geographical profiling= based on the principle of spatial consistency - that an offender’s operational base and possible future offences are revealed by the geographical location of their previous crimes.
• Canter’s circle theory= the pattern of offending forms a circle around the offender’s home base
• Spatial consistency= people commit crimes within a limited geographical space
• Interpersonal coherence= the way an offender’s operational base behaves at the scene, including how they ‘interact’ with the victim, may reflect their behaviour in more everyday situations.
• Forensic awareness= describes those individuals who have been the subject of police interrogation before, their behaviour may denote how mindful they are of ‘covering their tracks’.
• Investigative psychology= established patterns of behaviour that are likely to occur across crime scenes. This is in order to develop a statistical database which then acts as a baseline for comparison.