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Forensic Psychology (Option 3)Offender Profiling:
● Offender profiling aims to create a list of likely suspects for a crime, by narrowing
down the possible field of perpetrators. This is done by professional profilers and the
police, who use evidence and the crime scene to generate hypotheses about the
characteristics of the killer, such as their age, occupation, and so on
● There are two types of offender profiling: top-down approach and bottom-up
approach.
Offender Profiling: The Top-Down Approach
● This originated in the US (particularly, the FBI) in the 1970s. The characteristics of
the crime, and the likely offender, is matched to a pre-existing ‘template’, provided by
the FBI. More specifically, the FBI’s Behavioural Science Unit drew upon data
gathered from in-depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial killers including
Ted Bundy and Charles Manson. Profilers who use this method will match what is
known about the crime and the offender to a pre-existing template that the FBI
developed using the data they gathered from the interviews they conducted.
Murderers or rapists are classified in one of two categories (organised or
disorganised) on the basis of the evidence, and this classification informs the
subsequent police investigation.
● The distinction between organised and disorganised offenders is based on the idea
that serious offenders have a particular way of 'working' (this is referred to as modus
operandi – MO) and that these generally correlate with a particular set of social and
psychological characteristics that relate to the individual.
Organised Offenders: Disorganised Offenders:
● Shows evidence of having planned ● Shows little evidence of planning
the crime in advance suggesting the offence may have
● The victim is deliberately targeted been a spontaneous, spur of the
and will often reflect the fact that the moment act.
killer or rapist has a 'type'. ● The crime scene tends to reflect the
● They maintain a high level of control impulsive nature of the attack – the
during the crime and may operate body is usually still at the scene and
with almost detached surgical there appears to have been very
precision. little control on the part of the
● There is little evidence or clues left offender.
behind at the scene. ● They tend to have a lower than
● They tend to be of above-average average IQ, be in unskilled work or
intelligence, in a skilled, professional unemployed, and often have a
occupation and are socially and history of sexual dysfunction and
sexually competent. failed relationships.
● They are usually married (or ● They tend to live alone and often
maintain long-term relationships) relatively close to where the offence
and may even have children. took place.
,Constructing an FBI profile: There are four stages to the process:
● Data assimilation: reviewing the available evidence
● Crime scene classification: organised or disorganised
● Crime reconstruction: a hypothesis of what happened
● Profile generation: a hypothesis of the characteristics of the likely offender-
background, personality traits, occupation, and so on
Evaluation of top-down approach:
Applicable to certain cases: This method of profiling can only really be used in
crimes of murder and rape. More common offences such as burglary do not lend
themselves to profiling because the resulting crime reveals very little about the
offender. This restricts its applicability, unlike geographic profiling (part of the
bottom-up approach) which looks at the pattern of crime rather than the crime type,
making it more versatile. This means that it is a limited approach to identifying a
criminal.
The top-down approach relies on the prediction that personality characteristics
remain fairly stable over time, sometimes over years or decades. Therefore, it does
not consider that personality may be strongly affected by external factors rather than
stable dispositional factors, reducing the validity of this approach.
Supporting evidence: Canter (2004) analysed data from 100 murders in the USA
using smallest space analysis. The details of each case were examined with
reference to 39 characteristics thought to be typical of organised and disorganised
killers. He found evidence of a distinct organised type after, however, this was not the
case for disorganisation which seems to undermine the classification system.
Simplicity: Having two categories of a criminal is very simplistic. It is likely that
criminals do not fit neatly into either category, therefore making the prediction of their
characteristics difficult. It is likely there will be more types, and the distinction is too
restrictive. Godwin suggests that it is difficult to classify killers as only one type as
murderers could have multiple contrasting characteristics. For instance, Ted Bundy
had many characteristics of an organised killer e.g. intelligent and his victims had
brown hair that was parted in the middle, however, he left traces of his DNA after
engaging in necrophilia . It has been suggested that there may be overlap between
the ‘organised’ and ‘disorganised’ categories, reducing the validity of the approach
and affecting the accuracy of the profiling system.
Methodological issues: Research was based on interviews with 36 sexually
motivated killers in the US. 25 were serial killers and 11 were single or double
murderers. Critics have pointed out that this is too small of an unrepresentative
sample, upon which to base the typology system that may have a significant
influence on the nature of the police investigation. Canter has also argued that he is
not sensible to rely on self report, data with convicted killers, who, when constructing
a classification system
Pseudoscience:The Top-down approach could be seen as a more intuitive approach
to offender profiling, it often relies on the expertise of the profiler which is problematic
as this raises issues of subjectivity. There is also a lack of background evidence to
, suggest why it works. Therefore this method of profiling could be criticised in terms of
its credibility as it can be considered less scientific than the Bottom-up approach.
Supporting evidence: Ressler (1986) developed the definitions of organised and
disorganised offender through extensive interviews with real serial offenders like Ted
Bundy. As 24 could be classified as organised and 12 disorganised this suggests
there are distinct ‘types’ of offender that may predict behaviour and apprehension.
The Bottom-Up Approach:
● This was developed in the UK by David Canter (amongst others). The aim is to
generate a picture of the offender (e.g. likely characteristics, routine behaviour and
social background) through systematic analysis of evidence at the crime scene.
There are no fixed ‘typologies’ (as in the US system) that will be attempted to be
matched to the offender. Instead, a profile should emerge solely from the evidence of
each case.
● It makes use of ‘smallest space analysis’ (SSA) which is a computer programme
that identifies correlations across patterns of behaviour.
● Investigative psychology: This is an attempt to use statistical procedures and
psychological theory. The aim is to establish patterns of behaviour that are likely to
occur or co-occur across crime scenes. This is in order to develop a statistical
'database' which then acts as a baseline for comparison. Specific details of an
offence, or related offences, can then be matched against this database to reveal
important details about the offender, their personal history, family background, etc.
This may also determine whether a series of offences are linked in that they are likely
to have been committed by the same person.
● The idea of ‘interpersonal coherence’ is key - how the offender acts during the
crime is likely to relate to their actions in non-criminal situations. For example, a
murderer who leaves a very neat and tidy crime scene may be obsessively neat and
tidy in everyday life.
● The significance of the time and place of the crime is also considered - the
location is chosen by the offender, so is significant to them. This ties into the
offender's mental model of their environment (schemas). Offenders are likely to feel
more comfortable/in control in a place they know better.
● Criminal career - this is where following crimes committed by the same offender
change due to the criminal becoming more experienced e.g. the use of restraints in
later murders.
● Also, ‘Forensic awareness’, where it is considered how much the offender has
attempted to cover their tracks - this indicates they may have been questioned about
crimes before.
Geographical profiling:
● This technique uses information to do with the location of linked crime scenes to
make inferences about the likely home or operational base of an offender. Rossmo
(1997) proposed this method, which involves looking at the location of crimes which
seem to have been committed by the same offender (‘crime mapping’). Hypotheses
can be generated about what the offender is thinking, how they like to operate, where
they live or are basing themselves (‘centre of gravity’), and where they are next
likely to commit a crime (known as the ‘jeopardy surface’).
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