Evaluation (AO3)
Cards (4)
- Limitation: Socially Sensitive (I&D)
- both methods of offender profiling can be criticised for being socially sensitive & a hindrance to police investigations
- many argue that there's a danger that too much effort may be put into building offender profiles at the expense of other police resources that may be crucial in an investigation. there may also be instances where profiles have been inaccurate & led to miscarriages of justice
- although there are benefits to offender profiling, many argue that it shouldn't be overly relied upon - it should complement an investigation rather than lead it
- Strength: Scientific
- a strength of the bottom-up approach is that its highly scientific as the foundation of its approach is based on data
- decisions are data-driven, the approach is objective & refrains from forming profiles from hunches & subjective interpretations from crime scenes
- this contrasts with the top-down approach which isn't reliant on data & is instead built with a hypothesis of offender behaviour based on templates derived from subjective interviews with extreme offenders
- Strength: Usefulness For All Crimes
- a strength of the bottom-up approach is that its been praised for its usefulness in a wider range of criminal behaviours than top-down profiling
- whilst top-down approaches are limited to extreme criminal behaviour (rape, murder), bottom-up approaches are successfully used in more common crimes (theft, vandalism)
- therefore, there are more opportunities for bottom-up profiling techniques to be applied, making it a more suitable method for offender profiling
- Strength: Successful Application/Research Support
- a strength of the bottom-up approach is that its been used successfully to catch offenders
- Canter used his approach to provide an offender profile for the 'railway rapist' (John Duffy) who sexually assaulted & murdered women near railways in London
- This confirms that the bottom-up approach to offender profiling has useful applications in fighting crime