Offender Profiling

• Offender profiling


  An investigation tool employed by the police when solving crimes, with the aim of creating an idea of the offender's likely characteristics
• Purpose of offender profiling

  • Helps the police focus their resources on more likely suspects
  • Can create new leads within an investigation
• Top down approach to profiling

  Also known as the typology approach, where evidence from the crime scene and other details are used to fit into either of the pre-existing categories of organised or disorganised offender
• Organised offenders

  • The crime tends to be planned
  • The victim is specifically targeted
  • The killer often has a type
  • They maintain a high degree of control during the crime and may operate with almost detached surgical precision
  • They leave little evidence or clues behind at the crime scene
  • They are generally high in intelligence, socially and sexually competent, they usually live with a partner, have a car in good working order and follow their crimes in the media
• Disorganised offenders

  • The crime tends to be unplanned
  • Random selection of victim suggesting the offence may have been spontaneous or spur of the moment
  • Very little control during the crime and often impulsive so the body/evidence is usually left at the crime scene
  • Tend to have a lower than average IQ and be in unskilled work or unemployed and often have a history with sexual dysfunction and failed relationships and they tend to live alone
• The Top Down approach originated in the United States, as a result of work carried out by the FBI in the 1970's
• Construction of the top down profile

  1. Data assimilation

  2. Crime scene classification

  3. Crime reconstruction

  4. Profile generation
• Data assimilation


  Investigators gather together information from multiple sources including crime scene description, victim background, and crime details
• Crime scene classification

  Profilers decide whether the crime scene represents an organised or disorganised offender
• Crime reconstruction


  Reconstructing the crime in order to develop predictions about the motives and behaviour of the offender/victim
• Profile generation


  A profile is then constructed of the offender which includes hypotheses about the offender's characteristics including likely background, personality, habits and physical appearance
• Purpose of profile generation

  To help work out a strategy for the investigation to help catch the offender
• Top-down approach

  A strength is that police who have used the FBI methods believe that it is useful
• Top-down approach

  • It has been invaluable in order to help direct police resources in the right area
  • It can give a better understanding of the characteristics of the offender so to eliminate certain people from enquiries
• Top-down profiling can only be used for a limited range of crimes such as murders, rapes or arsons
• More common offences such as burglary and destruction of property do not lend themselves to profiling because the resulting crime scene reveals very little about the offender
• Top-down profiling is a limited approach to identifying a criminal of only certain crimes
• A problem with research into offender profiling is that researchers only focus on one variable that could be the cause an offender committing a crime
• Typologies used to categorise offenders

  • Organised
  • Disorganised
• Some offenders could show characteristics of both typologies therefore making the prediction of their characteristics difficult
• Typologies used to categorise offenders

  • Organised
  • Disorganised
• Canter et al., (2004) conducted content analysis on 100 cases of serial killers in the US
• They used the criteria set out by Douglas to classify the crimes as organised or disorganised
• Analysis of the types of crime did not clearly separate the organised and disorganised crimes and found no distinction between some crimes such as serial murders
• Canter concluded that the criteria for identifying disorganised and organised crimes are too simplistic
• Canter suggested that other factors such as individual personality differences between offenders (such as those used by investigative psychology) needs to be considered
• The basis of the method is flawed
• A further criticism of the top-down approach is the problem of generalising the results to offenders of different crimes, locations, races, or genders
• The original data on which the organised/disorganised classification is based on interviews with 36 of the most dangerous and sexually motivated murderers (including Ted Bundy and Charles Manson)
• The data was used to identify the key characteristics that would help people 'read' a crime scene
• Such individuals (who are highly manipulative) are not the best source of reliable information
• Their approach and rationale may be quite different to more 'typical' offenders
• This sample does not represent all offenders and is a limitation of the top down approach
• A criticism of the top-down approach to offender profiling is that the process is not based in any science or theory
• The accuracy of the profiles generated might be very subjective and open to interpretation
• Barnum Effect

  Vague evidence of the crime could be manipulated to fit into the characteristics of a particular type of offender (organised or disorganised) as part of the crime classification stage
• Profiling has the potential to cause harm because if the profiles are wrong, this may mislead investigations
• Bottom up approach

  More scientific as it is based on objective statistical techniques and computer analysis
• Top-down approach to offender profiling

  Not based in science or theory
• Bottom-up approach to offender profiling

  More scientific