Offender profiling: top down approach

• Offender profiling

  Aim is to narrow the list of suspects
• top down approach

  FBI interviewed 36 sexually motivated murderers - used this data with characteristics of their crimes to create two categories - help predict characteristics of the criminal
• organised

  Evidence of planning the crime

  High degree of control + little evidence

  Above average IQ

  Usually married
• Disorganised

  Little evidence of planing

  Crime scene reflects impulsive nature of the act

  Below average IQ

  History of failed relationships
• four main stages in construction of FBI profile

  1. Data assimilation
  2. Crime scene classification
  3. Crime reconstruction
  4. Profile generation
• strength - research support for organised category

  researchers looked at 100 serial killings using smallest space analysis to assess the co-occurrence of 39 aspects

  analysis revealed behaviours which matched organised offenders

  some validity
• counterpoint

  most killers have multiple contrasting characteristics and don’t fit one type

  organised-disorganised typology probably more of a continuum
• strength - can be adapted to other types of crime

  Recently been applied to burglary - 85% rise in solved cases in 3 US states

  Adds two categories - interpersonal and opportunistic

  Wider application than originally assumed
• limitation - evidence for top own profiling is flawed

  Canter et al argues FBI did not select random or large sample or use different kinds of offenders

  no standard set of questions - each interview different - not comparable

  not a sound scientific basis
• extra: personality

  based on behavioural consistency

  can be argued peoples behaviour much more driven by the situation they are in

  meaning top-down method may not always lead to successful identification