Bottom Up Approach

• The Bottom Up Approach (Canter and Britton) is the commonly used method in the UK
• The Bottom up approach (Canter and Britton) looks for consistencies in behaviour rather than fitting offenders into specific and rigid categories
• The bottom up approach (Canter and Britton) is focused on investigative psychology and geographical profiling
• Investigative psychology is psychological theory paired with research methods within an investigation
• investigative psychology the details of a crime scene and compares then to a database
• Case linkage is the use of statistical analysis and pattern recognition to identify themes, characteristics, and behaviours within crimes that are similar
• Investigative psychology uses empirical data to generate a hypothesis about characteristics of the offender
• assumptions of the bottom up approach (Canter and Britton); interpersonal coherence, time and place, criminal career, and forensic awareness
• Interpersonal coherence is shows consistency with offenders interact with victims and people in everyday life EG with aggression
• Time and place; the timing and location of a crime reveals information about the offender EG where they may live or work
• Criminal career means that crimes change as the offender becomes more experienced and advanced
• Forensic awareness states that it should be considered if the offender shows awareness of the CJS and what they do to reduce evidence
• Smallest space analysis identifies 3 factors of crime; easiest method, planned, and impulsive
• Geographical profiling is using information about the location of a crime to identify the characteristics of the offender such as crime mapping
• spatial consistency is the assumption that offenders will restrict their crimes to familiar locations
• an offenders spatial pattern of behaviour provides a centre of gravity to their offences such as their home
• Zones; home, buffer zone (too close), comfort zone, and distance decay (too unfamiliar)
• Circle theory shows patterns of crime create a circle that surrounds the offenders home
• Circle theory states that a marauder is someone who commits offences close to home
• Circle theory states that a commuter is someone who travels to commit their offences
• Circle theory offers insight into the nature of the offence such as transport, if it was planned, and the opportunity to commit
• Criminal geographic targeting is complex version of geographical profiling which considers the features of the environment to create a 3D heat map of where the offenders base may be
• Rossmo (1997) refers to Criminal geographic profiling as "hunting patterns"
• Strength; research support from Canter (1990) who did a content analysis of 66 case studies using smallest space analysis and found it was easy to predict whether crimes were committed by the same offender using bottom up methodology
• Strength; Research support from Canter and Lundrigan (2001) who collected information from 120 murder cases and found spatial consistency with where the bodies were found supporting geographical profiling
• Strength; geographical profiling has further application and can be modernised to create geographical targeting for more detailed and accurate investigations
• Strength; can be applied to other offences like burglary
• Strength; Beauregard (2009) claims this is the strongest method for identifying sexual offenders
• Strength; more objective and unbiased than the top down approach as it uses factual and statistical data rather than categorising offenders based on investigator opinion
• Weakness; simplistic and common sensical as geographical profiling works on the assumption that offenders commit crimes in a certain area close to home
• Weakness; success is dependent on the quality of police investigation
• Weakness; cannot determine identifying aspects of the offender such as their race or gender
• weakness; can be influenced by the preconceived notions or biases of the investigators
• Weakness; Kolsis (2002) found that chemistry students were able to produce more accurate profiles than experienced investigators suggesting it lacks accuracy and may be common sensical
• Weakness; failed profiling can be catestrophic EG Paul Britton profiled the incorrect killer of Rachel Nickel causing the real offender to get away with the crime