top-down approach

• top down approach - proposed by ressler, and uses pre-established theories/ideas and applies them to data at a crime scene to label offender as organised/disorganised
• profile generation includes :

  • crime scene classification
  • crime reconstruction
  • data assimilation
  • profile regeneration
• ORGANISED OFFENDER

  • leaves little physical evidence
  • moves the body elsewhere
  • crime is planned
  • socially and sexually competent
  • high IQ
  • follows crime up in the media
• DISORGANISED OFFENDER

  • crime is spontaneous
  • lots of physical evidence e.g blood, semen
  • body usually where crime occured
  • low IQ
  • not socially or sexually competent
  • poor history of relationships
• top down approach - allows forces to reduce their list of suspects through organising them as organised/disorganised meaning they are more likely to find the offender
• A03

  + RESEARCH SUPPORT - Holmes found that tda has been successful in 17% of cases. while this seems like a negligible number, it still meant many violent and sadistic offenders such as murderers were able to be imprisoned before they inflicted any further harm upon others. therefore, this shows that is is a moderately successful approach to catch highly dangerous criminals
• A03

  -REDUCTIONIST - approach been criticised as reductionist as it does not account for variability across crimes. for example some offenders may display characteristics of both an organised/disorganised offender which makes it difficult to classify them into one group. similarly, it believed human behaviour is stable, yet behaviour fluctuates meaning one crime may be planned yet the other is spontaneous. thus, this means it lacks validity if they don't take this into consideration
• A03

  -DOESNT ACCOUNT FOR ALL CRIMES - while the approach can be successful in some crimes that produce physical evidence such as a murder or rape, the tda doesn't account for crimes with little physicality such as fraud or burglary. this suggests that the approach is not generalisable as it lacks both consistency and effectiveness for these crimes that are not based on physical evidence which reduces the validity of the approach