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Summary Describe and evaluate offender profiling (16)
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Offender profiling evaluation A*
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Describe and evaluate offender profiling. Refer to Thomas and Alan in youranswer (16)
Offender profiling is an investigative strategy used by law
enforcement agencies to identify likely suspects and has been used
by investigators to link cases that may have been committed by the
same perpetrator.
The top-down approach uses the experience and intuition of a
profiler to draw up a profile from the crime scene. It is most often
used in violent crime such as murder. This is why it is often called
crime scene analysis (CSA). It involves seven steps.
The first is identifying the murder type, this asks whether the killing
is an isolated incident and identifying if it’s part of a string of
murders, whether or not they’re a serial killer, mass murderer or a
spree killer. A spree killer is someone who has killed people in one
time period, mass murderers only kill in one location and one time
and serial killers if there have been three or more murders by the
same person of a period of a month with a period of down time. The
next step is identifying the primary intent , this asks whether it was
deliberate, pre-meditated or not, if the murder was committed as a
consequence of another crime this paints a much grander picture.
The next step is to identify the victim risk, if the attacker’s victims
are vulnerable - e.g kids or prostitutes or old people, this indicates
their potential next attack and also what type of person they are.
Next is the offender risk, this is how much risk they actually took in
committing the crime once again giving a good insight into who
they are. Next, escalation. This is whether the anterior crime has
escalated into a more grim, serious crime. Time factors show when
the next attack could perhaps be and to see whether the attacker
works nights and finally location factors, whether it is near public
transport or a highway or something indicates transport. These
seven tools help classify a criminal into being organised or
disorganised.
Shawcross was a serial rapist and murderer and was caught using
the top-down approach. As the murderer had started leaving bodies
where they were coming back to cut them up at a later date.
McCrary and Grant suggested that the police should try to find a
body before it was cut up. When one was found, they said the police
should not remove it but instead should conduct a surveillance
operation. McCrary and Grant thought that the murderer would
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