British V FBI profiling

• what is offender profiling - what's the purpose

  profiling refers to the process of using all the available info about a crime in order to compose a 'picture' of what the offender might be like

  purpose: to narrow down the suspect list
• what are the 2 ways to generate a profile

  1. top down approach: FBI/typological

  2. bottom up approach: British/Investigative psychology
• what is the FBI's method (top down)

  FBI's offender profiling is done by matching new crime scenes to an existing template of types of offenders
• how were the templates/profiles created

  through interviews (often by Resseler) with 36 sexually motivated killers, the interviews then enabled the FBI to classify different types of offenders and specific personality/characterics of certain criminals
• what are the 2 types of offenders

  1. organised

  2. disorganised
• what are the crime scene characteristics of an organised offender


  + crime scene planning

  + evidence of control

  + few clues left

  + victim was targeted
• what personality/profile characteristics were created for an organsied offender

  + high IQ/intelligence

  + socially skilled

  + sexually compotent

  + skilled job

  + lives with a partner/family
• what are the crime scene characteristics of a disorganised offender

  - little sign of planning

  - little attempt to conceal evidence

  - little control of victim

  - weapon left at scene
• what personality/profile characteristics were created for a disorgansied offender

  - low IQ/intelligence

  - socially unskilled

  - history of failed relationships

  - unemployed/unskilled work

  - likely to live alone
• what are the 4 stages of the FBI process

  1. Data assimilation

  2. Crime classification

  3. Crime reconstruction

  4. Profile generation

  Dogs Can't Copy Pandas
• what does data assimilation include

  data is compiled from police reports, post mortems and crime scene photos
• what does crime classification include

  profilers decide whether the crime scene is disorganised or organised
• what does crime reconstruction include

  hypothesis about crime sequence, offender & victim behaviour etc...
• what does profile generation mean

  offenders physical, demographic and behavioural characteristics are determined
• what evidence supports the effictiveness of the top down approach

  internal review of FBI cases found that profiling:

  + identified suspects in 15%

  + helped focus the investigation in 77%
• what does this evidence suggest

  that profiling often didn't lead to direct identification of the suspect, but that profiling can still be indirectly beenficial at focusing investigations and may lead to quicker arrests
• what is an issue with the top down approach - however

  limited applications:

  only applies to particular crimes, best suited for crime scenes that reveal important details (rape, arson or torture/dissections)

  However, it has been used to help catch some dangerous offenders, such as Arthur Shawcross who was a murderer that was found due to character profiling techniques
• what did Canter criticise about this approach - why is this an issue

  - reliance on self report to develop classifications:

  he argued it's not sensible to rely on self-repor data from convicted killers, when constructing classification systems, this is an issue as social desirability bias may occur
• who was used for the orginal sample to create the classifications

  36 murderers
• why has this been criticised - why is it an issue/however

  - small and unrepresentative sample, based on a male sample:

  the same typology would be used for females, so has a gender bias

  However there are far fewer female serial killers
• what research by Canter criticises the organised/disorganised distinction


  research found majority of killers would be classified as organised, this is an issue as only one of the profiles are being used
• what are the 2 examples of british profiling

  1. investigative psychology

  2. geographical profiling
• who created the British approach

  Canter
• what is Canter's approach based on

  the criminal consistency hypothesis: people are consistent in their personalities

  so the theory suggests that criminal's actions at the crime scene will provide info about their personailty, background and life away from crime
• how does this differ to the FBI approach

  - Canter emphasises the importance of using a scientific method & controlled studies, rather than reliance on interviews with offenders

  - Canter conducted statistical analysis to identify the crime characteristics that are rare and distinctive (more useful for making a profile)
• what are the 5 factor models for crime scenes

  1. significance of time and place

  2. forensic awareness

  3. criminal career

  4. interpersonal coherence

  5. criminal characteristics

  So Far Can I Cope
• what is meant by significance of time and place


  the time when the crime occured, to suggest their occupation and the place the crime occured, if its the same each time then why? do they live/work near
• what is meant by forensic awareness

  how aware they are of forensic evidence, were gloves/condoms used - they may already have a criminal record or work in a field involving forensics (police)
• what is meant by criminal career

  normally more minor offences then lead to more severe ones (murder) so a criminal past can be investigated and types of offences examined
• what is meant by interpersonal coherence

  how they treat the victim suggests the type of relationship between ofender and victim, which relates to how they treat similair people in ordinary life (e.g treatment of women)
• what is meant by criminal characteristics

  any other details at the crime which may hint at the person, due to being unusual or distinct
• what is one strength of investigative psychology

  reliance on statistical analysis, it relies on evidence/data instead of self report (like the American method) so has more objective facts/more scientific
• what is a however to the use of data

  only 25% of crime is reported, so not all data will be available to use so the offender profiles may be incomplete, BUT for more serious crimes (murder) the rates of reporting are higher
• a strength of this approach is its applicability, what evidence supports this

  + wider applicability to more types of offences:

  research = some burglarly and some sex offences all show some consitency in the offender's behaviour across time

  this supports that it has a wider use for the police as it isn't restricted to murder (unlike FBI)
• Give an example of this approach having successes

  + the Railway Rapists being caught, Duffy's profile was very accurate and lead to his arrest
• what is an issue with this

  - However profiles only directly assisted in the arrest of the offender in 3% of cases, but 75% did say it had been helpful

  therefore it's not always accurate and there are cases where profiling is not successful which leads to wasted police time and affecting the lives of innocent individuals, as for the majority of cases it doesn't help
• what is an issue with using predictions about offender characteristics

  - may not always be applicable as it relies on averages about offenders that usually do certain things, but not everyone fulfills the norm, so can lead to following leads that aren't accurate

  However, it is less generic than the FBI approach
• what does geographical profiling use


  this uses techniques to analyse the locations of a series of crimes to indicate where the offender might live, work , socialise or travel
• what 4 things can geographical profiling be used to do

  1. identify which offences are linked

  2. predict the likely location of offenders base

  3. predict other characteristics of the offender

  4. help police/other officials target crime prevention resources
• why is a serial offenders 'mental map' important

  a criminal must know an area before they begin consistently commiting crimes there and this knowledge will largely be determined by where the crime takes place