Offender Profiling - Top-Down Approach

Developed?

• 36 sexually motivated serial killer interviews

• Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy etc

Organised Offender

• victim targeted

• charming

• clean crime scene with no clues

• highly intelligent

• socially/sexually competent

Disorganised Offender

• random victim

• quiet/weird

• weapon/body present at crime scene

• sexual activity after death

• average/lower intelligence

• socially/sexually incompetent

Stages to Profiling

1. Data assimilation 

2. Crime scene classification 

3. Crime reconstruction

4. Profile generation

AO3 P1

Only applies to specific crimes ☹ , serious crimes, limited approach

AO3 P2

Outdated models ☹ , assumes patterns of behaviour - it is stable, behaviour is external and changing, Alison et al, poor validity

AO3 P3

Research against disorganised ☹ , Canter et al, SSA, evidence for organised but none for disorganised, system undermined

AO3 P4

Original sample ☹ , developed from 36 murderers, unrepresentative, unreliable self-report, holds too much value