Offender profiling- FBI Top Down

Question 1

What does an offender profiler do?

Answer 1

Looks at additional clues at the crime scene or from witnesses/victims to build up a picture of the offender
Additional clues include the type of victim, crime, location, time of day, etc

Question 2

What are the two types of offender profiling?

Answer 2

FBI: Top down
British: Bottom up

Question 3

How was the FBI: Top down model created?

Answer 3

Based on interviews with 36 sexually-motivated murderers they recorded warning signs, what led to the offences and what encouraged them to continue - they built up a picture of traits held by them and from that distinguished two types of offenders

Question 4

What does the FBI: Top down model do?

Answer 4

Analyses crimes and crime scenes to determine the likely killer from predetermined categories

Question 5

What are the two types of offences/offenders?

Answer 5

Organised
Disorganised

Question 6

What are the characteristics of an organised offence?

Answer 6

-planned
-show self-control
-leaves few cues
-victim as targeted stranger
-attempts to control victim

Question 7

What are the characteristics of an organised offender?

Answer 7

-above average IQ
-socially and sexually competent
-married/co-habiting
-experiencing anger/depression at the time of offence
-follows media coverage of the crime
-skilled occupation

Question 8

What are the characteristics of an disorganised offence?

Answer 8

-little planning/preparation
-little attempt to hide evidence
-minimum use of constraint
-random, disorganised behaviour

Question 9

What are the characteristics of an disorganised offender?

Answer 9

-lives alone, near to crime scene
-sexually and socially inadequate
-unskilled occupation or unemployed
-physically/sexually abused in childhood
-frightened/confused at time of attack

Question 10

What four steps are used in the FBI: Top down approach?

Answer 10

1. Data assimilation
2. Crime scene classification
3. Crime reconstruction- hypothesis of sequence of events
4. Profile generation- hypothesis of offender’s characteristics

Question 11

What is a strength of the FBI model?

Answer 11

Evidence of its success- Ault and rese (1980)- looked at a rape case from 1979- top-down approach narrowed it down to 40 suspects straight away and arrest was made within a week

Question 12

What are the limitations of the FBI model?

Answer 12

Small sample- original interviews used 36- also unstructured- ungeneralisable- specific type of offence- lots of detail is hard to analyse- individual differences

Categories not mutually exclusive- may not fit into one category (Godwin 2002)- may have organised personality traits but spontaneous and disorganised offences- e.g. Ted Bundy left evidence at later crime scenes etc but was an organised personality type
Douglas et al (1992)- third category as mixed offender

Assumes personality determines criminality- can be influenced by external factors- situations influence behaviour and the situation of the crime is assumingly different to normal situations- makes building a profile harder