1- Discuss the top- down approach to offender profiling.
The Top down approach is a typology approach to offender profiles, being heavily used in
America around the 70s. Offender profiles is a statistical technique used by the FBI to
accurately predict possible physical and psychological characteristics of possible offenders
in order to aid and shorten the time spent searching for the offender.
Specifically, the top down approach was discovered in the 70’s based off data accumulated
by 36 unstructured interviews with sadistic, sexually motivated killers, 25 of which where
serial killers such as Ted bundy and Charles manson. From the interviews, the FBI
attempted to collect empirical evidence on the characteristics of possible offenders similar to
them ,following homology assumptions, in order to aid their understanding of the specific
social , psychological and physical characteristics a sadistic killer or rapist has. From The
data they collected the police created two specific categories to place the offender's in ,
organised and disorganised.
A limitation of the top- down approach is the fact it has reliability issues. The unstructured
interviews reliability was brought into question based on the sample they used as the
baseline of their research. The choice of using killers and serial killers creates issues due to
behavioural differentiation, killers have the tendency to chronically and compulsively lie in
order to exaggerate their crime to provoke fear in others, or to manipulate the interviewers.
Such ambiguity around the interviewees' answers therefore makes it unreliable. However the
interviews hold practical value to us. As the interviews with the 36 killers are used as the
baseline of the top-down approach, which offers us insightful, rich and an empirical view on
extreme crimes such as serial rape, murder and arson. It therefore aided our understanding
of criminal behaviour thus increasing the validity of the top down approach.However this is
still a limitation as the internal validity of the top down approach is flawed. The interview
samples were not only defective but the methodology used as well. The use of unstructured
interviews means that there were no stadisted questions used, resulting in the killers being
asked different things thus we can’t accurately compare the interviews . overall the issues
with the methodology and the sample weakness than internal validity of the top -down
approach.
Another limitation of the top down approach is the fact that there are generalizability issues
into wider application. The fact the the basis of the top down approach was based off of
extreme sadistic, sexually motivated serial killers and rapists, weakens the external validity
of the approach as we then cannot accurately generalize the findings to wider and common
crimes such as burglary and fraud due to our weakened comprehension on the criminals
behaviour. However Mitka found in a recent 2017 study that the top down approach can be
applicable toward other crimes. The results of their study found that 85% of burglary crimes
The Top down approach is a typology approach to offender profiles, being heavily used in
America around the 70s. Offender profiles is a statistical technique used by the FBI to
accurately predict possible physical and psychological characteristics of possible offenders
in order to aid and shorten the time spent searching for the offender.
Specifically, the top down approach was discovered in the 70’s based off data accumulated
by 36 unstructured interviews with sadistic, sexually motivated killers, 25 of which where
serial killers such as Ted bundy and Charles manson. From the interviews, the FBI
attempted to collect empirical evidence on the characteristics of possible offenders similar to
them ,following homology assumptions, in order to aid their understanding of the specific
social , psychological and physical characteristics a sadistic killer or rapist has. From The
data they collected the police created two specific categories to place the offender's in ,
organised and disorganised.
A limitation of the top- down approach is the fact it has reliability issues. The unstructured
interviews reliability was brought into question based on the sample they used as the
baseline of their research. The choice of using killers and serial killers creates issues due to
behavioural differentiation, killers have the tendency to chronically and compulsively lie in
order to exaggerate their crime to provoke fear in others, or to manipulate the interviewers.
Such ambiguity around the interviewees' answers therefore makes it unreliable. However the
interviews hold practical value to us. As the interviews with the 36 killers are used as the
baseline of the top-down approach, which offers us insightful, rich and an empirical view on
extreme crimes such as serial rape, murder and arson. It therefore aided our understanding
of criminal behaviour thus increasing the validity of the top down approach.However this is
still a limitation as the internal validity of the top down approach is flawed. The interview
samples were not only defective but the methodology used as well. The use of unstructured
interviews means that there were no stadisted questions used, resulting in the killers being
asked different things thus we can’t accurately compare the interviews . overall the issues
with the methodology and the sample weakness than internal validity of the top -down
approach.
Another limitation of the top down approach is the fact that there are generalizability issues
into wider application. The fact the the basis of the top down approach was based off of
extreme sadistic, sexually motivated serial killers and rapists, weakens the external validity
of the approach as we then cannot accurately generalize the findings to wider and common
crimes such as burglary and fraud due to our weakened comprehension on the criminals
behaviour. However Mitka found in a recent 2017 study that the top down approach can be
applicable toward other crimes. The results of their study found that 85% of burglary crimes
