Offender Profiling
- Investigative tool that aids the apprehension of an unknown
offender
TOP-DOWN APPROACH
- Approach adopted by the FBI and is classified as a typology lead as it looked
carefully analyses the crime scene + draws conclusions about the offender
- In general the profiler looks at other cases where criminals have been interviewed
to build a profile of the current offender and is usually used in extreme crimes e.g
Murder
- The approach was was Intially developed by the FBI following 36 interviews with
sexually motivated murders and then used the data to create 2 separate
categories of offenders : organised + disorganised
o The data from current crime scenes are then compared to the 2 categories
and then used to predict other characteristics of the offender hence
building the profile using typology
- ORGANISED = Shows signs of having planned crimes in advance
o High IQ
o Brings weapons to crime
o Socially adequate
o Returns to scene of crime
- DISORGANISED = Shows little signs of planing
o Crime committed in spontaously
o Impulsive
o Sexual dysfunction
o Lives + works near crime scene
- Stages of constructing an FBI profile
o Data Assimilation – Profiler reviews evidence
o Crime Scene Classification – Orgnaised or Disorgnaised
o Crime reconstruction – Hypotheses is generated about the behaviour and
events of crime
o Profile Generation – Hypotheses is now generated about the offender e.g.
physical characteristics
BOTTUM-UP APPROACH
- Developed by the British as they claimed top-down was based off intuition and not
objective data
o ‘Data-Driven’ as it uses the data obtained from similar crimes that have
been committed in the past to create an offender profile
Techniques used by Bottom-Up approach to investigate offender profiling
o INVESTIGATIVE PSYCHOLOGY = Aims to generate a picture of offenders’
characteristics, routine + background through interactions between
offenders + victims :
1. Interpersonal Coherence = Similarity between way offenders behave at
crime ( victim) + with others in real life
2. Forensic Awareness = Offenders understand procedure of criminal
justice system
- Investigative tool that aids the apprehension of an unknown
offender
TOP-DOWN APPROACH
- Approach adopted by the FBI and is classified as a typology lead as it looked
carefully analyses the crime scene + draws conclusions about the offender
- In general the profiler looks at other cases where criminals have been interviewed
to build a profile of the current offender and is usually used in extreme crimes e.g
Murder
- The approach was was Intially developed by the FBI following 36 interviews with
sexually motivated murders and then used the data to create 2 separate
categories of offenders : organised + disorganised
o The data from current crime scenes are then compared to the 2 categories
and then used to predict other characteristics of the offender hence
building the profile using typology
- ORGANISED = Shows signs of having planned crimes in advance
o High IQ
o Brings weapons to crime
o Socially adequate
o Returns to scene of crime
- DISORGANISED = Shows little signs of planing
o Crime committed in spontaously
o Impulsive
o Sexual dysfunction
o Lives + works near crime scene
- Stages of constructing an FBI profile
o Data Assimilation – Profiler reviews evidence
o Crime Scene Classification – Orgnaised or Disorgnaised
o Crime reconstruction – Hypotheses is generated about the behaviour and
events of crime
o Profile Generation – Hypotheses is now generated about the offender e.g.
physical characteristics
BOTTUM-UP APPROACH
- Developed by the British as they claimed top-down was based off intuition and not
objective data
o ‘Data-Driven’ as it uses the data obtained from similar crimes that have
been committed in the past to create an offender profile
Techniques used by Bottom-Up approach to investigate offender profiling
o INVESTIGATIVE PSYCHOLOGY = Aims to generate a picture of offenders’
characteristics, routine + background through interactions between
offenders + victims :
1. Interpersonal Coherence = Similarity between way offenders behave at
crime ( victim) + with others in real life
2. Forensic Awareness = Offenders understand procedure of criminal
justice system
