Top-down approach

• What is offending profiling?

  investigative tool employed by the police when solving crimes, the aim is to narrow the field of suspects
• What countries uses the top down approach?

  America
• What type of data does top down appraoch produce?

  produces qualitative data

  -based on police experience, no scientific evidence

  -suitable for extreme crime
• How did the FBI gather their evidence?

  in-depth interviews

  -with 36 sexually motivated serial killers including Ted Bundy and Charles Manson
• What is this also known as?

  typology approach
• What does this approach include?

  -match what is known about the crime and the offender to pre-existing template that the fbi developed

  -murderes or rapists are classified in one of 2 categories (organised or diaorganised) on the basis of the evidence
• What is the organised and disorganised type offenders distinction based on?


  -based on the idea that serious offenders have certain signature "ways of working" and these therefore correlate with a particular set of social and psychological characteristics that relate to the individual
• usuallyWhat are organised offenders like?

  -show evidence of planning the crime in advance

  -maintain a high degree of control during the crime

  -little evidence or clues left

  -tend to be above average iq

  -professional occupation

  -socially and sexually competent

  -usully married and may have children IQ
• What are disorganised offenders like?

  -little evidence in planning

  -offence may be spontaneous

  -crime scene tends to reflect the impulsive nature of the attack- the body is usually still at the scene and there appears to have been very little control on the part of the offender

  -lower average iq

  -unskilled work or unemployed

  -history of sexual dysfuncution and failed rs

  -live alone or live close to the crime scene
• What are the stages of constructing an fbi profile?

  -data assimilation-reviewing the evidence (photos of the crime scene, pathology reports)

  -crime scene classification-either organised or disorganised

  -crime reconstruction-hypothesis in terms of sequence of events, the behaviour of the victim

  -profile generation-hypothesis related to the likely offender e.g demographic background, physical characteristics, behaviour
• Evaluation-Limitation-Only applies to particular crimes

  — The main limitation is that the topdown approach can only be used to explain crimes where there have obvious, visible characteristics (e.g. rape and sadistic murder) and

  -so are unlikely to be effective in identifying criminals who are responsible for burglary or middle-class crimes, such as financial fraud. This means that the top-down approach may only be an effective method of offender profiling for 'blue-collar' crimes.
• Evalaution-Limitation-Evidence does not support the disorganised offenders

  ,-as suggested by Canter et al (2004). These researchers used the statistical technique of smallest space analysis to analyse the data from 100 murders in the US, with comparisons of each made to 39 typical traits of both offender types.

  -The fact that disorganised offenders cannot be identified as distinctly different from organised offenders suggests that this system lacks validity and breadth
• Evalution-limitation-based on outdated models of personality

  -typology calssification is based on the assumption that offenders have a pattern of behaviour and motivations that remain constant across

  -several critics (alison) suggested that the approach is naive and informed by old fashioned models of personality that see behaviour as being driven by disposbale traits rather than external factors that may be constanlty changing

  -lacks temporl validity when trying to identify possible suspects
• Evalaution-Limitation-Unrepresentaive


  -typology approach of using the 36 killers

  -critics have argued that it is a small sample and underrepresentation sample upon which base a typology system that may have a significant influence on the nature of the police investigation

  -canter also argues that it is not sensible to rely on self-report data with convited killers when constructing a classification system
• A03 points 


  Unrepresentative

  based on outdated models of personality

  Evidence does not support the disorganised offenders

  Only applies to particular crimes