Evaluation for top down

• A strength is that there is support for a distinct organised category. Canter Analysed 100 US murderers. They used the smallest space analysis to assess co-ocurance of 39 aspects of the serial killings. He revealed there is a subset of features of many serial killers that match the offender profile
• however, many studies suggest that the two types of offender is not mutually exclusive. there are a variety of combinations that occur at any given crime scene. a killer may have multiple characteristics.
• a strength is that is can be adapted to crimes such as burglary. this means that it has a wider application than originally assumed
• a limitation is that the evidence it is based on may not be scientific. this is because the original study the 24 of the criminals were classed as transited and 12 were classed as disorganised. canter argued that the sample was poor and the FBI did not randomly select the sample and it wasn’t big enough. there was also not a standardised set of questions that were asked. therefore it lacks scientific basis