Top Down Approach

• The top down approach predicts and profiles the characteristics of offenders based on their crimes
• The top down approach is the method commonly used in the USA
• The Top Down Approach was developed by the FBI behavioural scientist unit (ressier, douglas and Burgess) by gathering data from in depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated killers EG Ted Bundy
• The top down approach (Reisser, Burgess and Douglas) uses a typology approach to fit offenders to match existing templates of criminal offenders
• The top down approach (Reisser, Burgess, and Douglas) typically classifies offenders as organised or disorganised
• Methods used by the top down approach (Reisser, Burgess, and Douglas) data assimilation, crime scene classification, reconstruction, and profile generation
• Data Assimilation is review of evidence
• Crime scene classification is whether the crime scene indicates an organised or disorganised offender
• reconstruction is hypothesising what may have happened leading up to the crime such as the offender/victim interaction
• profile generation is hypothesising who the offender may be
• an organised offender plans, has high control, and is intelligent
• A disorganised offender acts on impulse, is not deliberate and leaves many clues behind
• Strength; Research support from Canter (2004) who analysed 100 American murders using smallest space analysis and found commonly occurring behaviours matched killers profiles as organised or disorganised
• Strength; real world application as when it was applied to burglary there was an 85% rise in solved cases
• Strength; wider applications as additional categories have been theorised such as personal and opportunistic
• Weakness; many offenders show signs of both typologies for example they may have high intelligence but lack control showing these typologies as a continuum rather than black and white categories
• Weakness; approach was established using a limited sample of just 36 offenders 24 of which were organised and 12 were disorganised
• Weakness; outdated as Alison (2002) claims it only considers disposition and not other factors such as class race or gender