Offender Profiling: Top-down approach

• Ainsworth refers to offender profiling as "the process of using all the available information about a crime, a crime scene and a victim in order to compose a profile of the (as yet) unknown perpetrator"
• Profiling is used to narrow down the range of potential suspects, and to prevent more crimes from occurring. 90% of profiling is used in murder and rape crimes , although it is also used in arson, burglary, robbery, obscene phone calls and stalking - often evidence left behind and tend to escalate
• Offender profiling began with the FBI in 1970s with Ted Bundy - American serial killer, kidnapper, rapist and necrophile who assaulted and murdered numerous young women during 1970s. Shortly before execution, after more than a decade of denials, confessed to 30 homicides committed in 7 states between 1974-78. True victim count remains unknown.
• Bundy's killings usually followed a pattern. He was intelligent, charming and attractive. He excelled at law school and fell in love with a young woman at college - after breakdown of relationship, Bundy's killing spree ensued. All victims resembled college girlfriend with long hair parted down the middle. After escaping police custody 2x, he was executed by electric chair in 1989
• After conviction, FBI Behavioural Science Unit gathered data via interview from 36 sexually motivated killers, including Bundy to develop approach to Offender profiling. Through insights gained from interviews and thorough analysis of crime details, combined with intuition police experience they created their classification system.
• Hazlewood and Douglas?

  created a theory that lust murderers are mainly categorised into 2 types: organised and disorganised - an example of top-down typology. This approach is described as a qualitative approach to offender profiling due to the fact that profilers first generate an overall picture, using typologies of the type of offender looking for. Then match what is known about an offender to these pre-existing templates. Heavily based on police experience (intuition) and case studies rather than psychological theory.
• Organised characteristics?

  Above-average intelligence

  Operates with detached surgical precision during the crime

  Little evidence or clues left behind on the scene

  Usually married or have children

  Planned the crime in advance

  Skilled, professional occupation

  Socially and sexually competent

  Attempts made to conceal the body

  Victims reflect the fact that the offender has a "type"
• Disorganised characteristics?

  Unskilled or unemployed

  Victims have no pattern

  Tend to live alone, relatively close to where crime took place

  Lower than average IQ

  A history of social and sexual dysfunction and relationship issues

  Body is usually found at the scene of the crime

  Attack is impulsive and seems unplanned

  Lots of evidence left behind

  Very little control during the act
• Constructing a profile stages:

  Data assimilation

  Crime classification

  Crime reconstruction

  Profile generation
• What is data assimilation?

  Data compiled from police reports, post mortems, crime scene photographs etc.
• What is crime classification?

  Profilers decide whether the crime scene is organised or disorganised.
• What is crime reconstruction?

  Hypotheses about the crime sequence, offender and victim behaviour and made
• What is profile regeneration?

  A potential profile based on the offender's physical, demographic and behavioural characteristics is produced
• Ressler et al: seven aspects to be considered when building a profile:

  Murder type

  Primary intent

  Victim risk

  Offender risk

  Escalation

  Time factors

  Location factors
• Murder Type?

  Isolated, mass, spree - modus operandi
• Primary Intent?

  Deliberate, pre-meditated, consequence of other crime?
• Victim Risk?

  Some victims are lower risk - children, elderly, prostitutes
• Offender risk?

  How much risk the offender took e.g. was crime committed in broad daylight?
• Escalation?

  How much have the offenders crimes escalated since last offence? helps to pre-empt future crimes
• Time factors?

  Time crime was committed may give clues of a daily routine - helps to pre-empt future crimes
• Location factors?

  Informative with regards to criminal's environment, where they live, transport options
• Top-down approach

  Based on data collected from 36 serial killers
• Methodological issues with the top-down approach

  • Small sample size - not representative
  • Opportunity sampling method - not valid
  • Gender bias
  • Participants were all repeat offenders, criminals, untrustworthy, manipulative - not valid data
  • Non-standardised interview method - lacks validity, can't replicate, can't compare
  • Lack of control group - can't compare, can't establish cause and effect, not scientific
  • Qualitative data analysis - subjective, harder to analyse, more detail - could used content analysis
  • Relied on self-report data - social desirability bias - could lie
• Grover and Godwin - too simplistic

  Questions the typologies asking how police would classify for example, a killer with high intelligence and sexual competence who commits a spontaneous murder where they body is left at the scene.
• Appropriate for certain types of crimes such as rape, arson, cult killings, torture, murder - means it is a reductionist approach to identifying an offender
• It is difficult to assess the effectiveness of top down profiling because the crimes it is most effective for are so rare - based on extreme cases which are not representative of the general population
• Based on the opinions and intuition of profilers. It can even be compared to horoscopes whereby the descriptions are made to fit any situation for most people (Barnum effect) but if profiling is wrong it holds greater consequences than horoscopes.
• Holmes cites FBI data, claiming that 192 cases of profiling construction resulted in 88 arrests. However on closer inspection Holmes claimed that profiling itself contributed to just 17% of these arrests
• Campbell stated "psychologists confronted with real life murder mystery can't do any better than a college student could of with the same material put in front of him"
• Pinizzotto and Finkel compared 5 groups on ability to write a profile of a murder and a sex offence, (expert profilers, detectives with profiling experience, detectives without profiling experience, clinical psychologists, undergraduates). Profilers showed significantly more accurate profile on sex offence, but not as accurate on murder as the detective without profiling experience
• Douglas did an internal review of the FBI on the costs and benefits of profiling and found that profiling does often lead to the correct identification of suspects, often reduced the amount of elimination work done by detectives. All users agrees that the service should continue
• Copson conducted a questionnaire on 184 US police officers. 82% said that the technique was useful and 90% said they would use it again. But, what about other police forces in other countries (research could be culturally biased)
• p: Top-down profiling is found to be useful by the police who use it

  e: For example, Copson conducted a questionnaire on 184 US police officers ad 82% said that the technique was useful and 90% said that they would use it again.

  e: However, this was only conducted in the US. Therefore police forces in other countries are not represented, making the technique culturally biased

  l: and potentially ethnocentric
• p: It is only applicable to a limited number of crimes

  e: For example, Pinizzotto and Finkel found that expert profilers showed significantly more accurate profiling on an example sex offence.

  e: However, They were not as accurate on an example murder case as the detectives without profiling experience.

  l: Suggests that the reliability and therefore use and applicability of the technique can be called into question.