Offender Profiling: The Bottom-Up Approach

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 the offender

Investigative Psychology

Matches details from the crime scene with statistical analysis of typical offender behaviour patterns based on psychological theory

Geographical Profiling

A form of bottom-up profiling based on the principle of spatial consistency - than an offender’s operational base and possible future offences are revealed by the geographical location of their previous crime

Interpersonal Coherence

The way an offender behaves at a scene, including how they ‘interact with their victim, may reflect their behaviour in everyday situations

Forensic Awareness

Those individuals who have been subject of police interrogation before, may denote how mindful they are of ‘covering their tracks’

The Marauder

Operates in close proximity to their home base

The Commuter

Likely to have travelled a distance away from their usual residence

Strength (Investigative Psychology)

* Canter and Heritage (1990)
* Analysis of 66 sexual assault cases
* Data examined using small space analysis
* Several behaviours were identified as common in different samples of behaviour
* Each individual displays a characteristic pattern of behaviour

Strength (Geographical Profiling)

* Lundrigan and Canter (2001)
* Collated information from 120 murder cases involving serial killers in the US
* The location of each body disposal site created a ‘centre of gravity’
* The offender’s base was invariably located in the centre of the pattern

Limitation

* Success of geographical profiling reliant on the quality of data that the police can provide
* This is not always accurate
* Between police forces, an estimated 75% of crimes aren’t even reported