Offender profiling- bottom up (UK)

what is the bottom up approaches

• developed in Britain, dosen’t use fixed typologies

• generate pic of offender, likely characteristics through analysis of evidence at crime scene

• uses investigative psychology and geographical profiling

Investigative psychology

• attempting to apply statistical procedures & psychological theory to analysis of crime scene, to establish patterns of behaviour likely to occur in diff scenes

• Interpersonal coherence- how offender behaves at scene

• Significance of time & place- indicates where offender lives if crime is within centre of gravity

• Forensic awareness- behaviours indicating if offender has been involved with police in past

Geographical profiling

• uses info about location of crime to make inferences about likely home or base of offender

• based on spatial consistency where offenders will stick to an area theyre familiar with- creates a sense of gravity

Circle theory- 2 models of offender behaviour

• Marauder- offender operates close proximity to their home

• Commuters- offender travels from usual home

Strength of geographical profiling- research support

• Lundrigan & Canter collected info from 120 murder cases from serial killers

• showed spatial consistency in behaviour of killers location of each body disposal site, creating a centre of gravity

• Offenders base was located in centre of pattern and was more noticeable in marauders

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

Limitation- may not always be accurate (case of Rachel Nickell)

• was stabbed and used a bottom up approach to identify murderer

• targeted Colin Stagg who fitted offender profile and an undercover police woman perused a romantic interest to get him to confess to the murder- judge rejected case when taken to court

• 16yrs later, real murder was found who was ruled out at early stage as he was inches taller than profile

• ECONOMIC IMPLICATION- waste money & time setting up honey traps and convicting wrong person

Strength of investigative psychology- research support

• Canter & Heritage analysed 66 sexual assault cases using smallest space analysis, many behaviours identified as common in diff samples of behaviour

• each person showed characteristic pattern of certain behaviour, helping establish if 2 or more offences were committed by same person

• Supports one principle of investigative psychology- people are consistent in their behaviour

Limitation- produces mixed results

• tested profiling skills of chemistry students and police

• students produced more accurate profiles and the more experienced the officer was, the more inaccurate their profile was

• suggests profiling involves more than guesswork.