Offender profiling

• What is offender profiling?

  A method of working out characteristics of the offender by examining characteristics of the crime and scene
• What is the top down approach?

  Approach used by USA that used evidence from the crime scene and evidence and is placed into pre-existing categories to determine the type of offender
• What are the two pre-existing categories established by the top down approach?

  Organised offender

  Disorganised offender
• What are the main stages of the top down approach?

  1. Data assimilation
  2. Crime scene classification
  3. Crime reconstruction
  4. Profile generation
• What are the limitations of the top down approach?

  Reductionist

  Approach can only be applied to sexually motivated serial killers

  Outdated theories of personality being stable

  Does not consider external situation factors
• What are the strengths of using the top down approach?

  Evidence shows that it is useful however there is a lot of mixed evidence about the approach
• What is the bottom up approach?

  Developed by British that mains to generate a picture of the offender though systematic analysis of crime scene evidence
• Who developed the bottom up approach?

  David Canter
• What are the two methods used by the bottom up approach?

  Investigative psychology

  Geographical profiling
• What are the three main features of investigative psychology?

  Interpersonal coherence

  Time and place of the crime

  Forensic awareness
• What does geographical profiling use?

  Centre of gravity

  Jeopardy's surface

  Canter’s circle theory
• What are the two models of offender behaviour in canters circle theory?

  Marauder - operates in close proximity

  Commuter - travels to another location
• What are the strengths of using the bottom up approach?

  Wider application of crimes

  Supporting evidence by Canter and Heritage for both investigative psychology and geographical profiling
• What are the limitations of using the bottom up approach?

  Overuse could lead to miscarriages of justice

  Evidence that the approach doesn’t always work

  Unreliable method