offender profiling

• offender profiling - making assumptions about characteristics of offender through careful analysis of their offence
• top down approach - profilers use their intuition and experience to categorise offenders into disorganised and organised
• top down approach - use crime scene evidence to do this
• organised - plan their own crime, bring weapons, tidy crime scene and hides the body, average/higher intelligence
• disorganised - reckless, untidy, spontaneous, leaves evidence on the crime scene, reflects below level intelligence
• TOP DOWN RESSLER

  created definitions of organised and disorganised with interviews of serial killers
• TOP DOWN RESSLER FINDINGS

  24 organised

  12 disorganised

  distinct 'types' of offender
• CRIT OF RESSLER

  restricted sample of 36

  not generalisable
• CANTER TOP DOWN APPROACH

  review of 100 US serial killers
• CANTER TOP DOWN APPROACH FINDINGS

  disorganised features are rare and does not form distinct type

  false dichotomy between two types
• BOTTOM UP APPROACH

  evidence base approach using statistical analysis of data collection from crime scenes
• bottom up approach - types of info collected is choice of victim and location

  can be referred to as investigative psychology
• factors in bottom down approach - five factor model
• FIVE FACTOR MODEL

  interpersonal coherence - interactions same in personal life
• FIVE FACTOR MODEL (t+p)

  time and place significance
• FIVE FACTOR MODEL (c characteristics)

  criminal characteristics
• FIVE FACTOR MODEL (c career)

  criminal career
• FIVE FACTOR MODEL (f.a)

  forensic awareness (knowledge of police techniques)
• geographical profiling - branch of investigative psychology focused on where offender is based , helps narrow search areas
• LEAST EFFORT PRINCIPLE - closest suitable crime scene to home base means fewer crimes will be further away.
• circle hypothesis - crimes radiate out of their home base creating a circle of crime
• CARTER AND LARKIN SUPPORT BOTTOM UP APPROACH

  87% of 45 British sexual assaulters = mauraders - supports circle hypothesis and idea that choice of place of crime is significant factor in offender behaviour
• bottom up approach limitation - diff to know if criminal is maurader or commuter before it is learnt
• bottom up limitation - difficult to separate offender, not all offences recorded
• positive bottom up - makes inferences with statistical analysis from published research and so more scientific
• limitation top down approach - relies on intuition and experience of individual criminal profilers
• negative of both - suffer from the problem of statistically abnormal offenders. cannot match to statistical analysis or what is expected through intuition