Forensic psychology
Offender profiling
Offender profiling is a behavioural and analytical tool to work out the characteristics of
an unknown offender by examining the characteristics of the crime and crime scene.
The top down approach
Profilers start with a pre-established typology and work down in order to assign
offenders to one of two categories based on witness accounts and evidence from the
crime scene.
🧠 This approach originates with the FBI in the US in the 1970s. This was developed
as a way to solve the most bizarre and extreme murder cases and designed to
produce a profile of the most likely offender.
🧠 It is regarded as the more intuitive application of a profiler’s prior knowledge.
1
, 2
🧠 The FBI gathered data from in depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial
killers.
🧠 Douglas (2006) says there are six main stages in the top down process.
○ 1. Profiling inputs - The data collected at this stage includes a description
of the crime scene, background information about the victim and details
of the crime itself.
○ 2. Decision process models - The profiler starts to make decisions about
the data and organises it into meaningful patterns. Such as: murder
type,time factors and location factors.
○ 3. Crime assessment - Based on data collected , the crime tends to be
classified as organised or disorganised.
■ Organised - Crime tends to be planned, the victim is specifically
targeted, the body is transported from the scene, the weapon is
usually hidden and violent fantasies may be acted out on the
victim.Offenders are usually high in intelligence, socially and
sexually competent,usually live with a partner and follow their
crimes in the media.
■ Disorganised - Crime tends to be unplanned,random selection of
victim,offender is likely to engage little with the victim and sexual
acts are preformed after death on the body, the crime scene is likely
to contain many clues such a blood,semen,fingerprints and a
weapon.
○ 4. Criminal profile - A profile is now constructed of the offender which
includes hypotheses about their likely background,habits and beliefs of the
offender. The description is used to create a strategy for the investigation
to help catch the offender.
○ 5. Crime assessment - A written report is given to the investigating agency
and persons matching the profile are evaluatd. If new evidence is
generated and/or no suspect is identified then the process goes back to
step 2.
○ 6. Apprehension - If a suspect is apprehended, the entire profile-generating
process is reviewed to check that at each step the conclusions made were
legitimate.
, 3
✓ The police who have used FBI methods believe it is useful. For example,
Copson (1995) questioned 184 US police officers, of whom 82% said the
technique was operationally useful and over 90% said they would use it
again. The technique may not result in actual identification of the offender,
but Scherer and Jarvis (2014) defend the use of top-down processing by
looking at other potential contributions beyond the identification of the offender.
For example, the approach offers investigators a different perspective, opens up
new avenues for investigation and may prevent wrongful convictions. This
suggests that top-down profiling of offenders is useful and could benefit the
police.
❌ The original data on which the organised/disorganised classification is based
came from interviews with 36 of the most dangerous and sexually motivated
murderers, including Ted Bundy and Charles Manson. This data was used to
identify the key characteristics that would help police “read” a crime scene. This
in itself is dubious, as such individuals, are not likely to be the best source of
reliable information. In addition, their approach and rationale may be quite
different to more “typical” offenders. This suggests that the data in which
top-down profiling is based upon is not valid and thus the profiling may not work
because of this.
❌ Snook et al. (2008) argue that profilers do little more than psychics who, it
could equally be argued, often have a wealth of experience in “reading” behaviour.
The process of top-down analysis is not based on any science or theory; in fact,
courts have been known to regard it as “junk science”. The believability of profiles
based on the top-down approach might be explained in terms of the Barnum
effect-ambiguous descriptions can be made to fit any situation, such as in the
case of horoscopes. We might expect that, in a list of 20 statements about a
person, 10 will often be correct or nearly correct, and this explains why profiles
often appear to be “right”. Therefore profiling has the potential to cause harm
because profiles may mislead investigations if they are wrong.
❌ Top-down profiling is best suited to crime scenes that reveal important details
about the suspect, such as rape, arson and cult killings, as well as crimes that
involve such macabre practices such as sadistic torture, dissection of the body
and acting out fantasies. More common offences such as burglary and
Offender profiling
Offender profiling is a behavioural and analytical tool to work out the characteristics of
an unknown offender by examining the characteristics of the crime and crime scene.
The top down approach
Profilers start with a pre-established typology and work down in order to assign
offenders to one of two categories based on witness accounts and evidence from the
crime scene.
🧠 This approach originates with the FBI in the US in the 1970s. This was developed
as a way to solve the most bizarre and extreme murder cases and designed to
produce a profile of the most likely offender.
🧠 It is regarded as the more intuitive application of a profiler’s prior knowledge.
1
, 2
🧠 The FBI gathered data from in depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial
killers.
🧠 Douglas (2006) says there are six main stages in the top down process.
○ 1. Profiling inputs - The data collected at this stage includes a description
of the crime scene, background information about the victim and details
of the crime itself.
○ 2. Decision process models - The profiler starts to make decisions about
the data and organises it into meaningful patterns. Such as: murder
type,time factors and location factors.
○ 3. Crime assessment - Based on data collected , the crime tends to be
classified as organised or disorganised.
■ Organised - Crime tends to be planned, the victim is specifically
targeted, the body is transported from the scene, the weapon is
usually hidden and violent fantasies may be acted out on the
victim.Offenders are usually high in intelligence, socially and
sexually competent,usually live with a partner and follow their
crimes in the media.
■ Disorganised - Crime tends to be unplanned,random selection of
victim,offender is likely to engage little with the victim and sexual
acts are preformed after death on the body, the crime scene is likely
to contain many clues such a blood,semen,fingerprints and a
weapon.
○ 4. Criminal profile - A profile is now constructed of the offender which
includes hypotheses about their likely background,habits and beliefs of the
offender. The description is used to create a strategy for the investigation
to help catch the offender.
○ 5. Crime assessment - A written report is given to the investigating agency
and persons matching the profile are evaluatd. If new evidence is
generated and/or no suspect is identified then the process goes back to
step 2.
○ 6. Apprehension - If a suspect is apprehended, the entire profile-generating
process is reviewed to check that at each step the conclusions made were
legitimate.
, 3
✓ The police who have used FBI methods believe it is useful. For example,
Copson (1995) questioned 184 US police officers, of whom 82% said the
technique was operationally useful and over 90% said they would use it
again. The technique may not result in actual identification of the offender,
but Scherer and Jarvis (2014) defend the use of top-down processing by
looking at other potential contributions beyond the identification of the offender.
For example, the approach offers investigators a different perspective, opens up
new avenues for investigation and may prevent wrongful convictions. This
suggests that top-down profiling of offenders is useful and could benefit the
police.
❌ The original data on which the organised/disorganised classification is based
came from interviews with 36 of the most dangerous and sexually motivated
murderers, including Ted Bundy and Charles Manson. This data was used to
identify the key characteristics that would help police “read” a crime scene. This
in itself is dubious, as such individuals, are not likely to be the best source of
reliable information. In addition, their approach and rationale may be quite
different to more “typical” offenders. This suggests that the data in which
top-down profiling is based upon is not valid and thus the profiling may not work
because of this.
❌ Snook et al. (2008) argue that profilers do little more than psychics who, it
could equally be argued, often have a wealth of experience in “reading” behaviour.
The process of top-down analysis is not based on any science or theory; in fact,
courts have been known to regard it as “junk science”. The believability of profiles
based on the top-down approach might be explained in terms of the Barnum
effect-ambiguous descriptions can be made to fit any situation, such as in the
case of horoscopes. We might expect that, in a list of 20 statements about a
person, 10 will often be correct or nearly correct, and this explains why profiles
often appear to be “right”. Therefore profiling has the potential to cause harm
because profiles may mislead investigations if they are wrong.
❌ Top-down profiling is best suited to crime scenes that reveal important details
about the suspect, such as rape, arson and cult killings, as well as crimes that
involve such macabre practices such as sadistic torture, dissection of the body
and acting out fantasies. More common offences such as burglary and
