These A-level psychology notes on the topic of forensics are clear, concise, and packed with visuals, making complex concepts easy to understand. Perfect for revision, they cover all key theories, studies, and evaluations in an accessible format. These notes helped me achieve an A*. I hope they hel...
What is the top-down approach? What is the FBI approach to offender profiling?
• American technique, FBI Data assimilation, crime scene classification, crime reconstruction and profile generation.
• Collect data then decide the category
• Organised and disorganised offender
• If crime scene matches the personality Crime scene characteristics: Personality characteristics: Acronyms:
characterises we can predict others
• E.g. in-depth interviews, 36 SMM (TB) • Controlled conversation • Socially competent Typology:
• Planning • Employment • SELL SI
• Restraints used • Lives alone • CPR BVW
What is the word for ‘ways of working’? • Body is hidden • Lives far from the scene
• Victim is a stranger • Sexually competent FBI approach:
Modus operandi • Weapon removed • IQ is high • ACRG
Evaluation of the top-down approach:
Advantages: evidence from canter’s SSA, correlation of typology for 100 US murders.
Disadvantages: mixed offender, Douglas suggests that may be a continuum. Canter - flawed evidence as FBI interviews were not randomly
selected and were small. No behavioural consistency, person X effect, Mischel - little use for understanding everyday behaviour.
,Offending profiling
It is a technique used to narrow down the pool of potential suspects,
indicating either the ‘type’ of person or the base of the offender.
The top-down approach
It is an American technique which involves collecting the data first
and then deciding the category that best fits.
FBI drew upon data from in-depth interviews with 36 sexually
motivated murderers, such as Ted Bundy.
• Data could be categorised into organised and disorganised crimes.
• If the data from the crime scene matches some of the
characteristics of one category, we could predict that others
would be likely.
Types of offender
Criminals usually have certain signature ‘ways of working’ (modus operandi).
The approach uses behavioural evidence left at a crime scene to identify the type
of offender:
CPRBVW SELL SI
, The FBI approach to offender profiling ACRG
Stage 1: Data assimilation e.g. police reports, photographs
Stage 2: Crime scene classification - organised/disorganised
Stage 3: Crime reconstruction - hypotheses about victim
behaviour and crime sequence
Stage 4: Profile generation - hypotheses related to the likely
offender e.g. demographics, physical characteristics, behaviour
Evaluation of the top-down approach
Advantages
Research support:
• Smallest space analysis is a statistical technique used to identify correlations across samples.
• Canter conducted used this technique to analyse of 100 US murders each committed by
different serial killers.
• The features of the killings matched the typology of organised offenders.
• For example, use of restraints, attempt to hide the body and use of weapons.
Suggests there is highly validity.
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