FP- Top Down Approach

Question 1

What is offender profiling?

Answer 1

Offender profiling is a tool employed by the police to narrow down the list of likely suspects.

Question 2

What is offender profiling based on?

Answer 2

Offender profiling is based on the idea that the characteristics of the offender can be deduced from details of the offence and crime scene.

Question 3

How does the top-down approach work?

Answer 3

• Templates of organised offender and disorganised offender are pre-existing in the mind of the profiler.
• Evidence from the crime scene and other details of the crime/victim/context are then used to fit the offender into either of the pre-existing categories and determine the offender as one type or the other

Question 4

What is the crime of an organised offender like?

Answer 4

• These offenders show evidence of having planned the crime in advance; the victim is deliberately targeted and will often reveal the fact that the killer or rapist has a preference for a certain type of victim.
• They maintain a high level of control during the crime and operate with an almost detached surgical precision.
• There is little evidence left behind at the scene of crime.

Question 5

How much evidence is left behind with an organised offender?

Answer 5

Little evidence left behind

Question 6

What kind of characteristics do organised offenders have?

Answer 6

Organised offenders tend to be:

• Above average intelligence
• In a skilled, professional occupation
• Socially and sexually competent
• Often married and have children

Question 7

What is the crime of a disorganised offender like?

Answer 7

• These offenders show little evidence of planning, suggesting the offence may have been spontaneous.
• The crime scene tends to reflect the impulsive nature of the attack, the body is usually left at the scene and there appears to have been very little control on the part of the offender.

Question 8

What characteristics does a disorganised offender have?

Answer 8

A disorganised offender tends to be:

• Of lower than average intelligence
• Be in an unskilled work or unemployed
• Often have a history of sexual dysfunction or failed relationships
• Tend to live alone
• Often live relatively close to where the offence took place.

Question 9

Evaluate the top down approach. (DISADVANTAGES)

Answer 9

1) Top-down profiling only applies to certain crimes (e.g. rape, arson, cult killings, and murders that involve macabre practices such as sadistic torture, dissection etc.). Common offences, such as burglary do not lend themselves to top-down profiling because the crime scene reveals very little about the offender.
2) The organised or disorganised distinction was developed based on interviews with 36 serial killers in the USA. Critics have pointed out that this is too small and unrepresentative a sample upon which to base a typology system.
3) The organised or disorganised distinction is overly simplistic. Holmes (1989) suggests there are four types of serial killer; visionary serial killer (kill because God or the Devil is directing them to), mission serial killer (kill to eradicate a group of people they consider to be undesirable), hedonistic serial killer (kill for the thrill) and power serial killer (kill to have complete control over the victims).
4) Canter et al. (2004) analysed data from 100 murders in the USA with reference to the characteristics thought to be typical of organised and disorganised killers. The findings did suggest evidence of a distinct organised type, however this was not the case for disorganised type which undermines the entire classification system.