ao3 top down

• • issue- could mislead investigations, process been criticised for no scientific basis, relying on intuition
  • believability of profiles explained by barnum effect, ambiguous descriptions can be made to fit any situation, (horoscope profiles appear to be accurate to all ),
  • Alison - officers were profile + list of actual characteristics half =fake, over 50% rated profile very accurate
  • lack reliability if profiles wrong, could mislead investigation, =more damage, commit more murders.
  • Jackson - smart offenders place misleading clues,
  • take care not be convinced by believability.
• • method is based on flawed data
  • The data came from 36 of the most dangerous and sexually motivated murderes including ted bundy,
  • there is no guarantee convicted murderers will tell the truth.
  • This data was used to identify key characteristics that would help police read a crime scene
  • however this is not a very reliable source of information, As these killers may have a different approach or rationale to ‘typical killers’ and are highly manipulative,
  • the classification of crimes and criminals may not be generalisable.
• • Police who have used the top-down approach have found it useful 

  For example.. Copson questioned 182 police us officers and 82% said the technique was operationally useful and 90% said they would use it again

  • Others suggest The technique may not result in the actual identification of the offender but it is useful for opening up new avenues for investigation and may prevent wrongful conviction. 
  • Therefore this benefits support the usefulness of this approach despite its lack of scientific basis