A01: The Top-Down Approach - Offender Profiling

• What is Offender Profiling?

  • Main aim of offender profiling is to narrow the list of likely suspects

  Professional profilers are employed to work alongside the police especially in high profile murder cases

  The scene and other evidence are analysed to generate hypotheses about the probable characteristics of the offender (e.g. age, occupation, background etc)
• Offender Profiling - 2?

  • Top Down Approach
  • Bottom Up Approach
• Top Down Approach

  • Used by FBI 1974

  In 1974, the behavioural science unit of the FBI conducted 36 interviews on sexually motivated like Ted Bundy, used this data together with characteristics of their crimes and concluded that offenders could be categorised into 2 distinct categories (organised & disorganised).

  • If data from crime scene matched some of the characteristics of one category we could predict other characteristics that would be likely of the perpetrator.

  This could then be applied to future situations
• 2 categories

  • Organised
  • Disorganised

  Typologies:

  These are based on the idea that serious offenders have certain signature 'ways of working' (MO). These generally correlate with a particular set of social & psychological characteristics that relate to the individual.
• Organised Offenders TYPOLOGY?


  • Evidence of planning the crime - victim is deliberately targeted, the killer/rapist may have a 'type' of victim, weapons absent ('clean up') and attempts to hide the victim.
  • High degree of control during the crime & little evidence left at the scene - operate with detached surgical precision.
  • Tend to be socially/sexually competent
  • Above average IQ - in a skilled/professional job
  • Usually married & may even have children

  For Example: Ted Bundy

  • Targets victim
  • Controlled
  • Higher IQ
• Disorganised Offenders TYPOLOGY?


  • Little evidence of planning, suggesting offence may have been spontaneous - leaves clues 'messy'
  • Crime scene reflects the impulsive nature of he act e.g. body still at scene & crime shows little control on the part of the offender.
  • Below average IQ - may be in unskilled work or unemployed
  • A history of failed relationships and living alone, possible history of sexual dysfunction.
  • Relatively close to where offence took place
  • Victim selected at random/spontaneous crime - no prior knowledge
  • Impulsive
  • Lower IQ
• Typology?


  • Offenders assigned to one of the two pre existing categories based on witness accounts and evidence from crime scene.
  • Organised
  • Disorganised
• FBI Profile Construction


  • FBI steps to creating a profile - 4 main stages in the construction of an FBI profile:
  • Data assimilation
  • Crime Scene classification
  • Crime Reconstruction
  • Profile Generation

  
  

  Data

  Classification

  Reconstruction

  Profile generation
• 1. Data Assimilation 


  • Collects and reviews all of the evidence/info (crime scene photographs, pathology reports witness reports etc)
• 2. Crime Scene Classification 


  • Is it Organised OR Disorganised typology based on the information given
• 3. Crime Reconstruction 


  • Generation of a hypotheses about the behaviour of the victim and sequence of events etc
  • (MO about offender)
• 4. Profile Generation 


  • generation of hypotheses about the offender (e.g. background, physical characteristics, demographic, behaviour etc - age, race, job etc)
• Top down VS bottom up?

  TOP DOWN:

  • Starts with theories about the type of offender ------> Theories then applied to the crime scene

  BOTTOM UP:

  • Starts with evidence from the crime scene ------> Scientific & statistical predictions based on the evidence from this crime scene & other crimes
• Top Down Approach - PART 2

  • Profilers start with pre established typology and work down in order to assign offenders to one of the 2 categories based on witness accounts, evidence from the crime scene etc
  • ALSO CALLED THE TYPOLOGY APPROACH - users of approach (offender profiles) will match what is known about the crime & the offender to a pre existing template (FBI developed)
  • Murderers/rapists classified in 1 of 2 categories (organised / disorganised) on basis of evidence & this classification informs the subsequent police investigation