offender profiling

what is it and how do we catch criminals

• Offender profiling is an investigative tool that aids in the identification, apprehension and conviction of an unknown offender by providing the police with a description of the likely social (employment, marital status) and mental characteristics (level of education, motivation) of the offender.

• It also provides predictions of who the offender is likely to attack next, where and when and possible interview strategies to elicit information about the crimes committed and confession of guilt.

• Offender Profiling - behavioural and analytical tool that is intended to help investigators accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown offenders

• Offender profiles are only as good as the information provided to the profiler, should be regarded as one tool amongst many to be used by police

what is the top-down approach

• From data gathered at crime scene, investigators can identify characteristics of offender

• Profilers start with pre-established typology and work down to lower levels in order to assign offenders to one of two categories based on witness accounts and evidence from the crime scene

  • Top-down as it attempts to fit crime details under pre-existing categories

  • Starts with the big picture and then fills in details - relies on previous experience of crimes

how was TD approach formed

• 1970s, Behavioural Science Unit in the FBI interviewed some of the world's most famous serial killers and criminals while they were in prison to understand their motives, family history, personality, level of intelligence, victimology

• Top-down approach pioneered in US with work of Ressler, Burgess and Douglas in 1970s from the BSU

• Specifics

  • Interviewed 36 sexually-motivated murderers (Ted Bundy, Ed Kemper etc)

  • Categorised murderers into either organised or disorganised criminals (each category has specific characteristics, and can be used in future crimes to match evidence from the crime scene to predict other characteristics of the offender)

  • Gave them ideas to identify early warning signs and possible triggers

  • Through data gathered from crime scene and examination of crime itself, identified the typologies

    • Categories and they group offenders who display different clusters of behaviours and attitudes

• In future situations, if crime scene data matched some of the characteristics of one category, we could predict other characteristics that would be likely - used to find the offender

  • Collect data about the murder and then decide on category that best fits

what are the typologies based on

• Based on idea that serious offenders have a signature way of working (modus operandi) and these generally correlate with a particular set of psychological and social characteristics

what is organised offender like

• Lead an ordered life and kills after some sort of critical life event, their actions are premeditated and planned, likely to bring weapons and restraints to the scene

  • Likely to be of average to high intelligence and employed

• Personal characteristics - show signs of having planned their crime in advance, socially adequate, sexually competent, charming, geographically/occupationally mobile, high IQ, lives with partner

• Post offense behaviour - returns to crime scene and volunteers information

• Interview techniques - use direct strategies

 

• Crime is planned, shows self-control at the crime scene, detached surgical precision, leaves few clues, victim is targeted stranger and usually there is a type that the killer seeks out, attempts to control victim

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

what is a disorganised offender like

• More likely to have committed the crime in a moment of passion, will be more evidence of premeditation, more likely to leave evidence such as blood, semen, murder weapon etc. behind - this type of offender is thought to be less socially competent and more likely to be unemployed

• Personal characteristics - socially inadequate, sexually incompetent, lives and works near crime scene, low IQ, lives alone

• Post offense behaviour - returns to crime scene to relive event, keep diary/news cutting of events

• Interview techniques - empathise with offender, introduce evidence indirectly

 

• Little planning/preparation, little attempt to hide the evidence at the scene, minimum use of constraint, random/disorganised behaviour, little control on part of the offender, body left at crime scene

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

four steps to constructing FBI profile

• Data assimilation - profiler reviews the evidence (crime scene photos, pathology reports, witness reports)

• Crime scene classification - organised or disorganised

• Crime reconstruction - hypotheses in terms of sequence of events, behaviour of victim

• Profile generation - hypotheses related to likely offender, e.g. of demographic background, physical characteristics, behaviour etc.

strengths of TD approach

• One strength is that there is support for a distinct organised category of offender

• In order to test the typologies, Canter et al 2004 conducted an analysis of 100 US murders each committed by a different serial killer

  • Smallest space analysis used - statistical technique that identifies correlations across different samples of behaviour

  • Analysis was used in order to assess the co-occurrence of 39 aspects of serial killings

  • Included whether there was torture/restraint, whether there was an attempt to conceal the body, murder weapon and cause of death

• Analysis revealed that there does seem to be a subset of features of many serial killings which matched the FBI's typology for organised offenders

  • Key component of FBI typology approach has some validity

 

• Strength is that it can be adapted to other kinds of crime such as burglary

• Critics of top-down profiling have claimed that technique only applies to limited number of crimes such as sexually motivated murder

  • However Meketa 2017 reports that it has been applied to burglary leading to a 85% rise in solved cases in three US states

  • Detection method retains the organised-disorganised distinction but also adds two new categories - interpersonal (offender usually knows the victim and is stealing something of significance) and opportunistic (generally an inexperienced young offender)

  • Suggests top-down profiling has wider application than was originally assumed

• Economic benefits to closing cases with haste

weakness of TD approach

• Many studies suggest that organised and disorganised types aren't mutually exclusive

• There are variety of combinations that occur at any given murder scene

• Godwin 2002 argues that, in reality, it is difficult to classify killers as one or the other type

  • Killer may have multiple contrasting characteristics such as high intelligence and sexual competence but commit a spontaneous murder leaving the victim's body at the scene

  • Suggests that organised-disorganised typology is probably more of a continuum

• This means the approach is too limiting and reductive, ignores complexity of criminal behaviour

 

• Evidence on which top-down profiling is based is a limitation, FBI interviewed 36 murderers in US, 25 were serial killers and 11 were single or double murderers

  • At the end of the process, 24 of these were classified as organised and 12 as disorganised

  • Canter et al 2004 argued that the sample was poor - FBI agents did not choose random or even a large sample nor did the sample include a range of offenders

    • Androcentric, all from the US, all sexually motivated, not generalisable at all

  • No standard set of questions, each interview was different and so not comparable

• Suggests a lack of a sound, scientific basis for top-down profiling

extra weakness of TD

• Top-down approach based on principle of behavioural consistency

• The idea that serial offenders have characteristic ways of working (modus operandi), these should in theory be seen across all of their crimes

• Should therefore be possible for profilers to link different crime scenes together making an offender easier to catch

  • However the situationist psychologists, Mischel 1968, argue that people's behaviour is much more driven by situation they are in than by personality

  • Behavioural patterns seen at a crime scene may tell us little about how that individual behaves in everyday life

• Therefore, has little use as we may not be able to identify someone who has the same characteristics as they should have for the crime as people may behave differently in the different situation

  • Deterministic

what is the Bottom-up approach

• Profilers work up from evidence collected from the crime scene to develop hypotheses about the likely characteristics, motivations and social background of offender

  • Systematic analysis of the scene

• No initial assumptions are made about the offender and the approach relies heavily on computer databases

• Developed by David Canter and Paul Britton in the 1990s

• Differences

  • Data-driven, develops as investigator engages in deeper and more rigorous scrutiny of the details of the offence

  • More grounded in psychological theory

 

• Investigative psychology - form of bottom-up profiling that matches details from the crime scene with statistical analysis of typical offender behaviour patterns based on psychological theory

  • Attempt to apply statistical procedures to analysis of crime scene evidence

  • Aim is to establish patterns of behaviour that are likely to occur - coexist - across crime scenes

  • This allows them to develop statistical database which acts as a baseline comparison

  • Specific details of an offence can then be matched against this database to reveal important details about the offender, personal history etc

  • May determine whether a series of offences are linked in that they are likely to have been committed by the same person

what are the FIVES

• Forensic awareness - offenders who show understanding of police investigation are likely to have had previous encounters with criminal justice system

• Interpersonal coherence - consistency between way offenders interact with their victims and others in their everyday life (killer who is aggressive to victims will probably be aggressive in general)

• Villain's characteristics - how crime has been committed, suggests aspects of offender's characteristics, based on evidence from previous studies

• Earlier crimes - crimes tend to be committed in similar fashion by offenders and can provide indication of how their criminal activity will develop, helps us to understand how crimes may change due to criminal being more experienced

  • Learning curve or progression seen

• Space and time - time and location of an offender's crime will communicate something about their own place of residence/employment

  • Offenders choose places where they feel comfortable, timing will match their work schedule and routines/habits

how is statistical analysis used

• Statistical analysis (e.g. multidimensional scaling or smallest space analysis) is used in investigative psychology to identify common themes and patterns of behaviour across several crime scenes.

• Because of interpersonal coherence, this data may also provide details about the criminal and narrow down the range of possible suspects.

• Statistical data can also be used to provide information about the offender’s location through geographical profiling.

• The statistical system used in the BUA is known as ‘smallest space analysis’ using evidence from the crime scene which renders a correlation of the behaviours that occurred most frequently across offences.

what is geographical profiling

• Geographical profiling - form of bottom-up profiling, based on the principle of spatial consistency (people commit crimes within a limited geographical space)

  • Uses info about location of linked crime scenes to make inferences about likely home or operational base of offender

  • This technique is used to make inferences about where an offender is likely to live, also known as crime mapping

  • Assume that serial offenders will restrict their ‘work’ to areas they are familiar with, and so understanding the spatial pattern of their behaviour provides investigators with a ‘centre of gravity’ with is likely to include the offender’s base (often in the middle of the pattern).

    • Idea of distance decay - less crimes are committed further from home

    • least-effort = where is it easiest for them to go

two types of geographical profiles

Canter and Larkin (1993) proposed two categories of offenders:

• Marauder - operates in close proximity to their home base

• Commuter - likely to have travelled a distance away from their usual residence

  • Such spatial decision making offers investigative team important insight into the nature of the offence: planned vs opportunistic and info about the offender: mental maps, mode of transport, employment status, approximate age

circle theory

• Canter and Larkin (1993) proposed the circle theory of environmental range - pattern of offending often forms a circle around the offender's home base

  • Canter and Larkin (1993) tested the circle hypothesis by studying the locations of sexual assaults committed by 45 British serial offenders.

  • They found that 39 of the 45 offenders (87%) lived within the circle predicted by the circle hypothesis, suggesting it is valid.

• Rossmo (2000) suggests that in general criminals offend close to their homes (or other base e.g. workplace) and the number of offenses drops off with increasing distance from the base.

  • This is supported by Godwin and Canter (1997) found that 85% of the offenders they studied lived inside the circle encompassing their offenses.

strengths of BUA

• Strength of investigative psychology is Canter and Heritage 1990 conducted an analysis of 66 sexual assault cases

• Data examined using smallest space analysis - several behaviours identified as common in different samples of behaviour such as use of impersonal language and lack of reaction to the victim

• Each individual displayed characteristic pattern of such behaviours and this can help establish whether two or more offences were committed by the same person (case linkage)

• Supports basic principles of IP that people are consistent in behaviour

  • HOWEVER, case linkage depends on the database and this will only consist of historical crimes that were solved

  • The fact that they were solved may be due to it being relatively straightforward to link the crimes in the first place - circular argument

  • Suggests IP may tell us little about crimes that have few links between them and remain unsolved

 

• Strength for evidence supporting geographical profiling

• Lundrigan and Canter 2001 - collated information from 120 murder cases involving serial killers in US

• Smallest space analysis revealed spatial consistency in the behaviour of the killers, location of each body disposal site created centre of gravity presumably because, when offenders start from their home base they may go in different direction each time they dispose body

• In the end all of these sites create a circular effect around the home base, offender's base was invariably located in the centre of a pattern

• Effect more noticeable for offenders who travelled short distances (marauders)

• Supports view that geographical information can be used to identify offender

weaknesses of BUA

• Limitation - GP may not be sufficient on its own

• As with IP, success of GP may be reliant on quality of data that police can provide

• Recording of crime is not always accurate as it can vary between police forces and an estimated 75% of crimes are not reported to police in the first place (dark figure of crime)

• Calls into question utility of an approach that relies on accuracy of geographical data

• Critics claim that even if the information is correct, other factors are just as important in creating a profile - timing of the offence and age and experience of the offender (Ainsworth 2001)

• Suggests geographical information alone may not always lead to successful capture of offender

 

• Offender profiling has something of mixed history, regarded in different ways by police forces

• Copson 1995 - surveyed 48 police departments and found that the advice provided by the profiler was judged to be useful in 83% of cases, suggesting validity as an investigative tool

• Same study revealed only 3% of cases did it lead to the accurate identification of the offender - Rachel Nickell case shows how it can be misused

  • The tried to arrest and take a man to court purely because he fit the profile without any evidence, judge through this out

• Kocsis et al 2002 - chem students produced more accurate offender profiles on solved murder case than experienced senior detectives