AO3

• strength of top-down approach = can be adapted to other kinds of crime such as burglary


  Critics of T-D profiling - technique only applies to a limited no. of crimes e.g. sexually motivated murder. BUT Meketa 2017, T-D recently applied to burglary -> 85% rise in solved cases in 3 US states. The detection method retains the organised-disorganised distinction - +2 new categories: interpersonal (offender usually knows victim & steals something of significance) & opportunistic (inexperienced young offender). This suggests that T-D profiling has wider application than originally assumed.
• limitation of top-down approach to profiling is it only applies to particular crimes 


  Top-down profiling is best-suited to crime scenes that reveal important details about the subject (e.g. rape, arson, murder and sadistic torture). Common offences (e.g. burglary, destruction of property) do not lend themselves to profiling because the crime often reveals little about the offender. This means that at best it is a limited approach to identifying a criminal.
• limitation is this approach is based on outdated models of personality 


  The typology classification system is based on the assumption that offenders’ patterns of behaviour and motivations are consistent across situations and contexts. Alison et al 2002 argue this is based on outdated personality models that see behaviour as driven by dispositional traits rather than by constantly changing external factors. This means that the top-down approach may have poor validity when it comes to identifying possible suspects and/or predicting their next move.
• strength of the top-down approach is that there is support for a distinct category of offender 


  to test the organised-disorganised typology (central to the T-D approach) Canter 2004, analysed 100 US murders each committed by a diff serial killer. used smallest space analysis technique. this was used to assess the co-occurrence of 39 aspects of serial killing. included things e.g. if torture or restraint, if attempt to conceal body, form of murder weapon used & COD. analysis revealed evidence of a subset of features of many serial killers which matched the FBIs typology for organised offenders
• limitation is that the classification system is too simplistic 


  Behaviours describing organised/disorganised offenders = not mutually exclusive. Goodwin 2002 asked how police investigators classify a killer = high intelligence who commits a spontaneous murder. therefore more detailed typologies. Holmes (1989) suggests 4 types of serial killer: visionary, mission, hedonistic, power/control. Keppel & Walter 1999, suggests we focus on the motivations of killers rather than ‘types’. The conflicting typology versions & approaches suggest classification systems for criminals may be too simplistic.