Top-Down A01

• Offender profiling


  Investigative tool used by police when solving crimes. Aims to narrow field of enquiry and list of likely suspects. Professional profilers are used for high profile cases.
• Method of compiling the profile


  Careful scrutiny of crime scene and analysis of evidence to generate a hypothesis on the characteristics of offender.
• The American approach


  Top-down approach originated in the US from work carried out by the FBI in the 1970s. Drew upon data gathered from in-depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated murderers including Ted Bundy and Charles Manson. Known as the typology approach.
• Typology approach


  Offender profilers who use this method will match what is known about the crime scene and offender to a pre-existing template developed by the FBI.
• Signatures


  Distinction on the type of offender as each one has a signature, Modus operandi, and these often correalte with a particular set of social and psychological characteristics that link to a category.
• Organised Offender


  An offender who shows evidence of planning, targets the victim and tends to be socially and sexually competent, perhaps has a family and has a skilled profession, with higher than average intelligence.
• Disorganised offender


  An offender who shows little evidence of planning, leaves clues and has very little control. Tends to be socially and sexually incompetent, unemployed and usually alone, with lower than average intelligence.
• Constusting an FBI profile


  -Data assimilation- Previewing evidence

  -Crime scene classification- Offender is either disorganised or organised

  -Crime reconstruction- hypothesis in terms of sequence of events

  -Profile generation- Hypothesis is reated to likely offender