Top down approach

• The main aim of offender profiling is to narrow the list of likely suspects. The scene and other evidence are analysed to generate hypotheses about the probable characteristics of the offender
• The FBI interviewed 36 sexually motivated murderes and used the data together with the characteristics of their crimes to create 2 catergories: organised and disorganised
• The organised and disorganised distinction is based on the idea that offenders have certain signature ways of working. These generally correlate with a particular set of social and psychological characteristics that relate to the individual
• Organised offenders are characterised by:

  • evidence of planning the crime
  • high degree of control
  • above average IQ
  • usually married and may even have children
• Disorganised offenders are characterised by:

  • offence may be spontaneous
  • impulsive nature of the act
  • below average IQ
  • history of failed relationships and living alone, hisotry of sexual dysfunction
• 4 main stages in FBI profile:

  1. data assimilation
  2. crime scene classification
  3. crime reconstruction (MO and signatures)
  4. profile generation (interrogation techniques)
• MO stands for modus operandi which is a way of working and it is what an offender does to commit a crime. These ways of working usually correlate with a particular set of social and psychological characteristics
• Signature is what the offender does to satisfy their psychological needs in committing the crime. These are the acts committed by an offender that are not necessary to complete the offence
• One strength is research support for an organised category. Carter et al looked at 100 US serial killings. Smallest space analysis was used to assess the co-occurrence of 39 aspects of the serial killings. his analysis revealed a subset of behaviours of many serial killings that match the FBIs typology for organised offenders. This suggests that a key component of the FMI typology has some validity
• A counterpoint to the research support is that Godwin argues that in reality, most killers have multiple contrasting characteristics and dont fit into one "type". This suggests that disorganised - organised typology is more of a continuum and the 2 types might be too reductionist
• Another strength is that it can be adapted to other types of crime. Meketa reports that top down profiling has recently been applied to burglary, leading to an 85% rise in solved cases in 3 US states. The detection method adds 2 new categories: interpersonal (offender knows their victim, steals something of significance) and opportunistic (inexperienced young offender). This suggests that top down profiling has wider application than was originally assumed
• One limitation is that the approach is flawed. Canter et al argues that the FBI agents did not select a random or even a large sample, nor did it include different types of offender. There was no standard set of questions sp each interview was different and therefore not comparable. This suggests that top down profiling does not have a sound scientific basis and lacks internal validity
• Another limitation is that it is a self report, and ciminals may be pathological liars, which leads to inaccurate responses and acquiesence bias