Essay
DISCUSS THE TOP DOWN APPRAOCH TO OFFENDER PROFILING. REFER TO EVIDENCE IN YOUR ANSWER
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A 16 mark essay on the top down approach and an evaluation of it
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DISCUSS THE TOP DOWN APPRAOCH TO OFFENDER PROFILING. REFER TO EVIDENCE INYOUR ANSWER
The top-down approach is the USA’s (FBI) way of offender profiling. They interviewed some
of the worst offenders to find out why they did what they did to try to find patterns in the
type of person who commits a certain crime. They entered all the data they found from
these interviews into a huge database which would suggest patterns or similar crimes.
When a crime is committed, they submit all descriptions and details of this crime which
would give the profiler a chance to categorise the offender to being organised or
disorganised. Using the database and their ‘feel’ for who the offender might be, a full profile
is now constructed and people matching it are evaluated. The final step is apprehension and
once done the whole process is checked to ensure that conclusions made were accurate.
One piece of evidence to support the top-down approach as a way of offender profiling is
that it works well for serious crimes as an offender’s personality is often apparent from the
crime scene. However, for petty crimes like burglaries it may not been as useful as these
crimes are more likely committed on impulse and so profiles wouldn’t work fro these
people.
Another piece of evidence that criticises the top-down approach as a way of offender
profiling is that the original data came from interviews with the most dangerous and
sexually motivated offenders who may not be the most reliable source of information as
their ‘rationale’ would be very different to the normal type of offender. However, the
revision parts of each stage of the 6-part process allows for continuous improvement and so
over time the profiling will be more valid and accurate.
A final piece of evidence that criticises the top-down approach as a way of offender profiling
is that the way profiling is done is very public meaning smart offenders may read up on the
construction of them and deliberately mislead profilers by leaving ‘red herrings’. This would
be detrimental to apprehension as it would waste FBI time and resources giving the
offender a better chance of success. However, this would mean the offender would have to
be extremely on the organised side of offenders and once discovered to be fake cues would
narrow down the profile immensely making it easier to catch the offender.
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