Offender profiling
A crime is an act committed in violation of the law where the consequence of
conviction is punishment. In the UK, crime is determined by a guilty act (actus
reus) that was carried out voluntarily with intention (mens rea).
Offender profiling dates back as far as 1888 (jack the ripper). It is an
investigative tool which narrows down the list of likely suspects. It usually
involves scrutiny of crime scenes, analysis of evidence to generate a hypothesis
about probable characteristics of the offender- age, background, occupation and
characteristics.
Top down approach
* American and used by FBI
* Start with an established typology/categorisation and assign individuals to these
types based on witness accounts and evidence
* Devised in the 1970s
* Based on in-depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial killers including
Ted Bundy
* Used to match what is known about the crime and offender to pre-existing
templates, developed by the FBI
* Categorises criminals as ‘disorganised’ or ‘organised’
FBI profiling process (Jackson and Bekerian, 1997)
* Data assimilation; data compiled from police reports, post-mortems, crime scene
photos, etc.
* Crime classification; profilers decide whether the crime scene is organised or
disorganised.
* Crime reconstruction; hypotheses about crime sequence, offender & victim
behaviour, etc.
* Profile generation; offender’s physical, demographic and behaviour
characteristics
Types of offenders
* serious offenders have signature ways of working
* Correlates with set of socials and psychological characteristics to the
individual
Organised
disorganised
* evidence of planning
* Victim is deliberately targeted to reflect the criminals ‘type’
* Above average intelligence
* Skilled, professional occupation
* Usually married with children
* Operates crime with precision
* High degree of control through crime
* Little evidence at crime scene
* spontaneous, spur of the moment act
* Crime scene shows impulsion
* Tend to live alone
* Unemployed or in unskilled work
* Body still at scene
,* History of sexual dysfunction/failed relationships
* Lower than average IQ
* Tend to live alone and close to the crime scene
Ted Bundy
* Graduated law school by 1972
* Charming, intelligent and articulate man
* Had a girlfriend
* Preyed on young women
* Had a specific type
* Often tricked victims by using crutches or his arm in a sling to ask for help
* He would grab them, bind them and throw them into the back of his car
* When first arrested masks, handcuffs and rope was found in his car
* He confessed to killing 30 victims- many bodies were not found
* Organised
Richard Chase
* The vampire of Sacramento
* Spent time in mental health institutions
* Lived alone
* No social life or girlfriendg
* Abused drugs and alcohol
* No victim type- middle age women, man, 22 month old
* Murders were opportunistic- he walked the streets and checked doors- if they were
unlocked he would enter
* No effort to conceal crime
* Identified from a school friend
* Convicted of 6 murders
* Disorganised
Outline the top-down approach to offender profiling (6 marks)
* where it originated
* Carried out by
* How it was created
* Categories of it
* Crime classification stage
* Predictions of other characteristics
* List of suspects narrowing
* Information about organised offenders
* Key features of organised
* Information about disorganised offenders
* Key features of disorganised
Evaluation - strength
* support for a distinct organised category of offender
* Canter et al 2004 analysed 100 US murders each committed by a different serial
killer\technique called smallest space analysis was used; identifies correlations
across different behaviours. In order to assess the occurrence of 39 aspects of
serial killers
* Whether there was; torture or restraint, attempt to conceal the body, the murder
weapon used and the cause of death
* The analysis revealed there does seem to be subset of features of many serial
killings which matched the FBI’S typology for organised offenders
, * Although Canter found evidence for a distinct organised type, there was no
significant evidence for a disorganised type
* Therefore suggesting that a key component of the FBI typology approach has some
validity
Counterpoint
* However, many studies suggest that the organised and disorganised types may not
be mutually exclusive. There are a variety of combinations that occur at a 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 types: high intelligence and sexual
competence but commits a spontaneous murder leaving the body at the scene
* This suggests the organised - disorganised typology is probably more of a
continuum
Limitation - flawed evidence
* The top down approach was based on interviews with 36 murderers; poor sample.
Serial killers are an unrepresentative sample as they didn’t take into account the
other criminals that were in the prison at that time
* The sample is small and not random
* There were no standardised questions so comparisons across interviews were not
possible
* Self-report information may be inaccurate - they could lie - social desirability
- hoping for appeal. They could also exaggerate their crimes for fame. Leading to
inaccuracies
* The top down approach does not have sound specific background and there were many
methodological issues when the interviews were initially carried out
Evaluation - wonder application
* another strength is that top down profiling can be applied to other crimes such
as burglary
* Criticism of the top down approach claim that the technique only applies to a
limited number crimes - such as sexually motivated murder, rape, and arson
* Tina Meketa 2017 - top down profiling has recently been applied to burglary,
leading to an 85% rise in solved cases in three US states
* The organised disorganised distinction was kept but also adds two new categories
interpersonal (offender knows victim and steals something of significance) and
opportunistic (generally inexperienced young offender)
* This suggests that the top-down profiling has a wider application than first
assumed
Bottom up approach
* largely developed in Britain and was associated to work of David Canter
* Aim is to generate a picture of the offender through evidence analysis of the
crime scene; characteristics, routine behaviour, social background
* The bottom up approach does not begin with fixed typologies like the top down.
Instead the profile is data-driven and emerges through deeper and rigorous scrutiny
of the offence as it is investigated
* there are two methods that count as bottom up these methods are; investigative
psychology and geographical profiling
Investigative psychology
* an attempt to apply statistical procedures and psychological theory to the
A crime is an act committed in violation of the law where the consequence of
conviction is punishment. In the UK, crime is determined by a guilty act (actus
reus) that was carried out voluntarily with intention (mens rea).
Offender profiling dates back as far as 1888 (jack the ripper). It is an
investigative tool which narrows down the list of likely suspects. It usually
involves scrutiny of crime scenes, analysis of evidence to generate a hypothesis
about probable characteristics of the offender- age, background, occupation and
characteristics.
Top down approach
* American and used by FBI
* Start with an established typology/categorisation and assign individuals to these
types based on witness accounts and evidence
* Devised in the 1970s
* Based on in-depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial killers including
Ted Bundy
* Used to match what is known about the crime and offender to pre-existing
templates, developed by the FBI
* Categorises criminals as ‘disorganised’ or ‘organised’
FBI profiling process (Jackson and Bekerian, 1997)
* Data assimilation; data compiled from police reports, post-mortems, crime scene
photos, etc.
* Crime classification; profilers decide whether the crime scene is organised or
disorganised.
* Crime reconstruction; hypotheses about crime sequence, offender & victim
behaviour, etc.
* Profile generation; offender’s physical, demographic and behaviour
characteristics
Types of offenders
* serious offenders have signature ways of working
* Correlates with set of socials and psychological characteristics to the
individual
Organised
disorganised
* evidence of planning
* Victim is deliberately targeted to reflect the criminals ‘type’
* Above average intelligence
* Skilled, professional occupation
* Usually married with children
* Operates crime with precision
* High degree of control through crime
* Little evidence at crime scene
* spontaneous, spur of the moment act
* Crime scene shows impulsion
* Tend to live alone
* Unemployed or in unskilled work
* Body still at scene
,* History of sexual dysfunction/failed relationships
* Lower than average IQ
* Tend to live alone and close to the crime scene
Ted Bundy
* Graduated law school by 1972
* Charming, intelligent and articulate man
* Had a girlfriend
* Preyed on young women
* Had a specific type
* Often tricked victims by using crutches or his arm in a sling to ask for help
* He would grab them, bind them and throw them into the back of his car
* When first arrested masks, handcuffs and rope was found in his car
* He confessed to killing 30 victims- many bodies were not found
* Organised
Richard Chase
* The vampire of Sacramento
* Spent time in mental health institutions
* Lived alone
* No social life or girlfriendg
* Abused drugs and alcohol
* No victim type- middle age women, man, 22 month old
* Murders were opportunistic- he walked the streets and checked doors- if they were
unlocked he would enter
* No effort to conceal crime
* Identified from a school friend
* Convicted of 6 murders
* Disorganised
Outline the top-down approach to offender profiling (6 marks)
* where it originated
* Carried out by
* How it was created
* Categories of it
* Crime classification stage
* Predictions of other characteristics
* List of suspects narrowing
* Information about organised offenders
* Key features of organised
* Information about disorganised offenders
* Key features of disorganised
Evaluation - strength
* support for a distinct organised category of offender
* Canter et al 2004 analysed 100 US murders each committed by a different serial
killer\technique called smallest space analysis was used; identifies correlations
across different behaviours. In order to assess the occurrence of 39 aspects of
serial killers
* Whether there was; torture or restraint, attempt to conceal the body, the murder
weapon used and the cause of death
* The analysis revealed there does seem to be subset of features of many serial
killings which matched the FBI’S typology for organised offenders
, * Although Canter found evidence for a distinct organised type, there was no
significant evidence for a disorganised type
* Therefore suggesting that a key component of the FBI typology approach has some
validity
Counterpoint
* However, many studies suggest that the organised and disorganised types may not
be mutually exclusive. There are a variety of combinations that occur at a 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 types: high intelligence and sexual
competence but commits a spontaneous murder leaving the body at the scene
* This suggests the organised - disorganised typology is probably more of a
continuum
Limitation - flawed evidence
* The top down approach was based on interviews with 36 murderers; poor sample.
Serial killers are an unrepresentative sample as they didn’t take into account the
other criminals that were in the prison at that time
* The sample is small and not random
* There were no standardised questions so comparisons across interviews were not
possible
* Self-report information may be inaccurate - they could lie - social desirability
- hoping for appeal. They could also exaggerate their crimes for fame. Leading to
inaccuracies
* The top down approach does not have sound specific background and there were many
methodological issues when the interviews were initially carried out
Evaluation - wonder application
* another strength is that top down profiling can be applied to other crimes such
as burglary
* Criticism of the top down approach claim that the technique only applies to a
limited number crimes - such as sexually motivated murder, rape, and arson
* Tina Meketa 2017 - top down profiling has recently been applied to burglary,
leading to an 85% rise in solved cases in three US states
* The organised disorganised distinction was kept but also adds two new categories
interpersonal (offender knows victim and steals something of significance) and
opportunistic (generally inexperienced young offender)
* This suggests that the top-down profiling has a wider application than first
assumed
Bottom up approach
* largely developed in Britain and was associated to work of David Canter
* Aim is to generate a picture of the offender through evidence analysis of the
crime scene; characteristics, routine behaviour, social background
* The bottom up approach does not begin with fixed typologies like the top down.
Instead the profile is data-driven and emerges through deeper and rigorous scrutiny
of the offence as it is investigated
* there are two methods that count as bottom up these methods are; investigative
psychology and geographical profiling
Investigative psychology
* an attempt to apply statistical procedures and psychological theory to the
