Offender Profiling
Used in forensic psychology, and police to track down criminals
What is offender profiling?
A technique that used all the available information about a crime, a crime scene, and a
victim, in order to put together a profile (a possible “picture”) of the unknown offender(s)
It involves painstaking analysis of the crime scene supported by hours of statistical analysis
The resulting “biological” sketch allows the police to draw inferences about the offenders
motivation and personality from evidence left at the crime scene.
For example, in cases of serial murder, a psychologist may make inferences about the
offenders personality, habits, prominent features of their behaviour (lifestyle, personal
needs, past history) based on information derived from the ways in which the murders were
committed.
The overall aim of profiling is to narrow the field of investigation, reduce the list of potential
suspects by excluding all those people who do not fit profiling criteria or offer a new line of
enquiry.
Offender profiling has developed since 1970’s and two distinctive schools of thought have
emerged in offender profiling.
In Britain, an investigative approach to offender profiling is follow (bottom up), whereas, in
America offender profiling is based more on the actual information recorder by the federal
bureau of investigation (FBI), and crimes are then categorised as either “organised” or
“disorganised” (top down)
, Comparing the two approaches
The British approach to profiling is rather different from the American one
How?
The British style is bottom up and the American is top down
o Bottom up – is one in which a person starts with all the raw data and works
their way up to a conclusion that makes sense of this data
Such as?
In terms of criminal investigation, you can collect all the pieces of evidence
and then piece them together to try and infer the state of mind of the
perpetrator
o Top down – looks at the evidence, data, in light of certain theories or
general principles, rather than specifically relating to a single case and uses
these theories to make sense of the data.
Such as?
In terms of a murderer, a theory might state that only people with a
particular sexual deviance commit certain crimes, so when a crime occurs,
the investigators looks for a person with this particular depravity
Used in forensic psychology, and police to track down criminals
What is offender profiling?
A technique that used all the available information about a crime, a crime scene, and a
victim, in order to put together a profile (a possible “picture”) of the unknown offender(s)
It involves painstaking analysis of the crime scene supported by hours of statistical analysis
The resulting “biological” sketch allows the police to draw inferences about the offenders
motivation and personality from evidence left at the crime scene.
For example, in cases of serial murder, a psychologist may make inferences about the
offenders personality, habits, prominent features of their behaviour (lifestyle, personal
needs, past history) based on information derived from the ways in which the murders were
committed.
The overall aim of profiling is to narrow the field of investigation, reduce the list of potential
suspects by excluding all those people who do not fit profiling criteria or offer a new line of
enquiry.
Offender profiling has developed since 1970’s and two distinctive schools of thought have
emerged in offender profiling.
In Britain, an investigative approach to offender profiling is follow (bottom up), whereas, in
America offender profiling is based more on the actual information recorder by the federal
bureau of investigation (FBI), and crimes are then categorised as either “organised” or
“disorganised” (top down)
, Comparing the two approaches
The British approach to profiling is rather different from the American one
How?
The British style is bottom up and the American is top down
o Bottom up – is one in which a person starts with all the raw data and works
their way up to a conclusion that makes sense of this data
Such as?
In terms of criminal investigation, you can collect all the pieces of evidence
and then piece them together to try and infer the state of mind of the
perpetrator
o Top down – looks at the evidence, data, in light of certain theories or
general principles, rather than specifically relating to a single case and uses
these theories to make sense of the data.
Such as?
In terms of a murderer, a theory might state that only people with a
particular sexual deviance commit certain crimes, so when a crime occurs,
the investigators looks for a person with this particular depravity
