Forensic psychology

• How the top-down approach works:

  Categories of other crimes – reviewing characteristics of current crime – seeing which category its best fits into – what other characteristics are in the predetermined category? - could they also apply to this crime?

  «  Categories = typologies
• What is offender profiling (A01)

  A behavioral and analytic tool that is intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown criminals

  - Helps create a list of suspects

  - Usually involves examining the crime scene and other evidence to generate hypotheses about the offender (age, sex, job etc.)
• The American (top-down) approach (A01)

  It's described as a qualitative approach to offender profiling due to looking at the overall picture and using typologies

  - less scientific and less reliable

  - Can't view trends

  - Unlikely to have a large crime sample due to it being time consuming
• The American (top-down) approach (A01)

  It's based-on police experience and case studies rather than psychological theory

  - Open to bias

  - Subjective – not all officers will encounter the same kind of crimes/ report on them in the same way

  Its suitable for the more extreme/ unusual crimes (murder, rape, ritualistic crimes)

  - Can't generalise to all types of crime (theft etc.)
• The American (top-down) approach (A01)

  Originated in the FBI’s behavioural science unit (BSU) who researched the backgrounds, personalities, crimes and motives of serial killers in the 1970s. Will only collect information about the crime then see which category the data best fits

  They did this by interviewing 36 sexually motivated murderers including Ted Bundy and Charles Manson and concluded the data could be categorized into organized or disorganized crimes

  - Small sample

  - Not generalisable to all criminals/ types of crime

  - Criminals can lie in interviews – less accurate
• Organized offenders:

  -   Leads and ordered life and kills after some sort of critical life event

  -  Crimes are premeditated and planned

  -  Likely to bring weapons and restraints to the scene

  -  Average to high intelligence

  -  Employed
• Disorganized offenders:

  -  More likely to have committed the crime in a moment of passion

  -  No evidence of premeditation

  -  More likely to leave evidence behind

  -  Less socially competent

  -  More likely to be unemployed
• Ted Bundy the “organized killer” (A02)

  Ted Bundy an American serial killer, kidnapper, rapist, and necrophile who murdered numerous young women during the 1970s. He confessed to 30 homicides across seven states between 1974 and 1978. Bundy was intelligent, charming, and attractive. He excelled in law school and had a relationship during college, whose breakup seemed to trigger his killing spree. His victims often resembled her, with long hair parted down the middle. Bundy escaped police custody twice before being captured again. He was executed by electric chair in 1989.
• FBI profiling (A01)

  Four stages:

  - Data assimilation: profiler reviews evidence

  - Crime scene classification: organised or disorganised

  - Crime reconstruction: hypothesis construction (sequence of events, behaviour of victim)

  - Profile generation: hypotheses linked to likely offenders (demographics, physical characteristics, behaviour)
• Research support (A03)

  - One strength of the top-down approach is that there is support for a distinct organised category of offender. This is supported by Canter et al (2004) who analyzed murders by 100 different murderers by comparing 39 aspects of the killings such as whether torture/restraint was involved or whether the murderer hid the body.

  - This analysis proved that there does seem to be a subset of features of many serial killings that match the FBI’s typology for organised offenders. This suggests that a key component of the FBI’s typology has some validity
• Counterpoint (A03)

  - However, many case studies suggest that the organised and disorganised types are not mutually exclusive. Godwin (2002) argues that it is difficult to classify killers as one or the other type as they have multiple contrasting characteristics

  - This suggests that organised-disorganised typologies are more likely to be on a continuum

  - Therefore, the classification system may not be valid and should be revised
• Wider application (A03)

  A strength of top-down profiling is its wider application to other crimes, such as burglary. Meketa (2017) found it led to an 85% increase in solved burglary cases across three US states.

  In addition to the organised-disorganised distinction, two new categories were added: interpersonal (where the offender knows the victim + steals something significant) and opportunistic (typically an inexperienced offender). This makes top-down profiling a more comprehensive method of offender profiling, suggesting it has broader applications than initially thought.