Top-down approach

• Developed in the United States FBI.

  Aim: develop general typology of criminal behaviour on actual data gathered from captured criminals and past crime scenes

  FBI agents able to match features crime/scene with particular criminal based on weather it is an organised or disorganised crime
• Crime scene characteristics reveal great deal about offenders lifestyle and personal characteristics
• Organised criminal -

  • above average IQ
  • sexually and socially competent
  • Usually lives with a partner
  • Experienced anger, depression at time committing crime
  • crime scenes show sings of careful planning
  • victim a targeted stranger
• Disorganised criminal:

  • below average IQ
  • sexually + socially inadequate
  • Frightened, confused at time committing crime - possibly due too previous physical or sexual abuse
  • Crime scene show no signs of planning or control
  • victim selected at random
• There are 4 main stages when building a profile:

  1. Gathering data from the crime scene such as photographs, interviews and pathology reports
• There are 4 main stages when building a profile:

  2. claifying crime scene as being either organised or disorganises
• There are 4 main stages when building a profile:

  3. reconstruction of the scene and hypothesising about the victim and offender behaviour and the sequence of events
• There are 4 main stages when building a profile:

  4. generating a profile of the offender based on the crime scene classification and hypotheses
• evaluation: Validity - not based on scientific principle - based on intuition and experience

  Hazelwood and Douglas study was based on self-reports, cannot be relied on for Validity
• Evaluation: reliability - distinction between two types are oversimplification making it hard to categorise (lacks reliability)

  classifications not greatly detailed and often involve subjective interpretation (lack reliability)
• Evaluation: Generalisability - typologies limited to muderers and rapists and is little value when looking at other crimes

  origins are based on restricted sample of 36 serial sex offenders - can't be generalised to a wide population