Forensics Revision Notes
Offender Profiling: The Top-Down Approach
The Top-Down Approach:
Offender Profiling:
• Offender profiling is a behavioural and analytical tool that is intended to help
investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown offenders.
• It aims to narrow the field of likely suspects, reducing the workload of the
investigation.
• Professional profilers will work alongside police and the scene and evidence
analysed will generate hypotheses about probable characteristics of the offender.
The American Approach:
• The top-down approach refers to a method that collects data about a murder and
then decides on the category in which the data fits best.
• The TDA to profiling originated in the US as a result of work carried out by the FBI in
the 1970s.
• The FBI’s Behavioural Science Unit drew upon data gathered from in-depth
interviews with 36 sexually motivated murderers.
• They concluded that the data could be categorised into organised or disorganised
crime.
• Each category had certain characteristics. Therefore, if the data from a crime scene
matched some of the characteristics of one category, predictions could be made
about other characteristics that would be likely. This could then be used to find the
offender.
,Organised/Disorganised Types of Offenders:
• The organised and disorganised distinction is based on the idea that serious
offenders have certain signature ‘ways of working’.
• These generally correlate with a particular set of social and psychological
characteristics that relate to the individual.
Organised Offenders Disorganised Offenders
-Show evidence of having planned the -Show little evidence of planning the crime
crime in advance. beforehand – spontaneous attacks.
-Victim is deliberately targeted and has -Very little control on part of the offender –
been sought out. body usually still at the scene.
-Has maintained a high degree of -Tend to have lower-than-average IQ,
control during the crime. unemployed and have a history of failed
relationships.
-Tend to be of above-average
intelligence, in a professional -Tend to live alone and often relatively
occupation and are socially competent. close to the location of the offence.
-Usually married and may even have
children.
Constructing an FBI Profile:
There are four mains stages in the construction of an FBI profile.
1. Data Assimilation – The profiler reviews the evidence.
2. Crime Scene Classification – As either organised or disorganised.
3. Crime Reconstruction – Hypotheses in terms of sequence of events, behaviour or
victim etc.
4. Profile Generation – Hypotheses related to the likely offender e.g. demographic
background, physical characteristics, behaviour etc.
,Evaluation:
Research Support
• Strength of the top-down approach – there is support for a distinct organised
category of offender.
• Testing the organised-disorganised typology, Canter et al. (2004) conducted an
analysis of 100 US murders each committed by a different serial killer.
• The smallest space analysis was used. The analysis was used to assess the co-
occurrence of 39 aspects of serial killings. This included things such as whether there
was torture or restraint, an attempt to conceal the body etc.
• This analysis revealed that there does seem to be a subset of features of many
serials killing which matched the FBI’s typology for organised offenders.
• This suggests that the FBI typology approach has some validity.
Counterpoint – Mutual Unexclusiveness
• Many studies suggest that the organised and disorganised types are not mutually
exclusive.
• There are a variety of combinations that occur at any given murder scene.
• Godwin (2002) argues that it is difficult to classify killers as one or the other type.
A killer may have multiple contrasting characteristics, such as high intelligence
but still commit a spontaneous murder, leaving the body at the crime scene.
• This suggests that the organised-disorganised typology is probably more of a
continuum.
, Wider Application
• Strength of top-down profiling – it can be adapted to other kinds of crime
(burglary).
• Critics of top-down profiling have claimed that the technique only applies to a
limited number of crimes, such as sexually motivated murder.
• However, Meketa (2017) reports that top-down profiling has recently been
applied to burglary, leading to an 85% rise in solved cases in 3 US states.
• The detection method adds two new categories: interpersonal (offender knows
victim and steals something of significance) and opportunistic (generally
inexperienced young offender).
• This suggests that top-down profiling has wider application than was originally
assumed.
Flawed Evidence
• Limitation of top-down profiling is the evidence on which it is based.
• FBI profiling was developed using interviews with 36 murderers. At the end of the
process, 24 of these individuals were classified as organised offenders and 12 were
disorganised.
• Canter et al. have argued that the sample was poor as the FBI agents did not
randomly select nor was the sample large. The sample also did not include different
kinds of offenders.
• There was no standard set of questions, so each interview was different and
therefore not really comparable.
• This suggests that top-down profiling does not have a sound, scientific basis.
Offender Profiling: The Top-Down Approach
The Top-Down Approach:
Offender Profiling:
• Offender profiling is a behavioural and analytical tool that is intended to help
investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown offenders.
• It aims to narrow the field of likely suspects, reducing the workload of the
investigation.
• Professional profilers will work alongside police and the scene and evidence
analysed will generate hypotheses about probable characteristics of the offender.
The American Approach:
• The top-down approach refers to a method that collects data about a murder and
then decides on the category in which the data fits best.
• The TDA to profiling originated in the US as a result of work carried out by the FBI in
the 1970s.
• The FBI’s Behavioural Science Unit drew upon data gathered from in-depth
interviews with 36 sexually motivated murderers.
• They concluded that the data could be categorised into organised or disorganised
crime.
• Each category had certain characteristics. Therefore, if the data from a crime scene
matched some of the characteristics of one category, predictions could be made
about other characteristics that would be likely. This could then be used to find the
offender.
,Organised/Disorganised Types of Offenders:
• The organised and disorganised distinction is based on the idea that serious
offenders have certain signature ‘ways of working’.
• These generally correlate with a particular set of social and psychological
characteristics that relate to the individual.
Organised Offenders Disorganised Offenders
-Show evidence of having planned the -Show little evidence of planning the crime
crime in advance. beforehand – spontaneous attacks.
-Victim is deliberately targeted and has -Very little control on part of the offender –
been sought out. body usually still at the scene.
-Has maintained a high degree of -Tend to have lower-than-average IQ,
control during the crime. unemployed and have a history of failed
relationships.
-Tend to be of above-average
intelligence, in a professional -Tend to live alone and often relatively
occupation and are socially competent. close to the location of the offence.
-Usually married and may even have
children.
Constructing an FBI Profile:
There are four mains stages in the construction of an FBI profile.
1. Data Assimilation – The profiler reviews the evidence.
2. Crime Scene Classification – As either organised or disorganised.
3. Crime Reconstruction – Hypotheses in terms of sequence of events, behaviour or
victim etc.
4. Profile Generation – Hypotheses related to the likely offender e.g. demographic
background, physical characteristics, behaviour etc.
,Evaluation:
Research Support
• Strength of the top-down approach – there is support for a distinct organised
category of offender.
• Testing the organised-disorganised typology, Canter et al. (2004) conducted an
analysis of 100 US murders each committed by a different serial killer.
• The smallest space analysis was used. The analysis was used to assess the co-
occurrence of 39 aspects of serial killings. This included things such as whether there
was torture or restraint, an attempt to conceal the body etc.
• This analysis revealed that there does seem to be a subset of features of many
serials killing which matched the FBI’s typology for organised offenders.
• This suggests that the FBI typology approach has some validity.
Counterpoint – Mutual Unexclusiveness
• Many studies suggest that the organised and disorganised types are not mutually
exclusive.
• There are a variety of combinations that occur at any given murder scene.
• Godwin (2002) argues that it is difficult to classify killers as one or the other type.
A killer may have multiple contrasting characteristics, such as high intelligence
but still commit a spontaneous murder, leaving the body at the crime scene.
• This suggests that the organised-disorganised typology is probably more of a
continuum.
, Wider Application
• Strength of top-down profiling – it can be adapted to other kinds of crime
(burglary).
• Critics of top-down profiling have claimed that the technique only applies to a
limited number of crimes, such as sexually motivated murder.
• However, Meketa (2017) reports that top-down profiling has recently been
applied to burglary, leading to an 85% rise in solved cases in 3 US states.
• The detection method adds two new categories: interpersonal (offender knows
victim and steals something of significance) and opportunistic (generally
inexperienced young offender).
• This suggests that top-down profiling has wider application than was originally
assumed.
Flawed Evidence
• Limitation of top-down profiling is the evidence on which it is based.
• FBI profiling was developed using interviews with 36 murderers. At the end of the
process, 24 of these individuals were classified as organised offenders and 12 were
disorganised.
• Canter et al. have argued that the sample was poor as the FBI agents did not
randomly select nor was the sample large. The sample also did not include different
kinds of offenders.
• There was no standard set of questions, so each interview was different and
therefore not really comparable.
• This suggests that top-down profiling does not have a sound, scientific basis.
