Offender Profiling

Offender profiling refers to a set of investigative techniques used by the police to try to identify perpetrators of serious crime. There are two main approaches to offender profiling: the top-down approach and the bottom up approach.

Top-down approach – AKA The American approach

The top-down approach to offender profiling is sometimes known as the American approach because it was the approach adopted by the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) in the 1970’s. It begins by looking carefully at the crime scene and drawing conclusions from the evidence found there about the offender. The profiler also looks at other cases (where criminals have been interviewed) in order to build a picture of typical offender profiles. Using all of this information a profile is built for the current offender ‘from the top down’. This method is typically used for more extreme crimes, such as murder and rape.

Aim: To identify the major personality characteristics of serious offenders and how the differed from non-offenders.

Participants: 36 convicted serial killers in American prisons whose crimes had sexual orientation.

Method: Lengthy unstructured interviews with information collected about the crime scene

Results: Information from the crime scene revealed that crimes were either premeditated and planned or sudden and unrehearsed.

Conclusion: The crime scene could be used in the same way as a fingerprint to help identify the murderer. Crime scenes reveal clear evidence of whether offences had been committed by ‘organised’ or ‘disorganised’ offenders.

Disorganised offenders

A disorganised offender is more likely to have committed the crime in a moment of passion. There will be no evidence of premeditation and they are more likely to leave evidence behind such as blood, semen, murder weapon and the victims the. This type of offender is thought to be less socially competent (failed relationships), unemployed, low IQ and lives alone.

Organised offenders

They show evidence of having planned the crime in advance; the victim is deliberately targeted and will often reflect the fact that the offender has a ‘type’. They maintain a high degree of control during the crime and may operate with almost detached surgical precision. There is little evidence or clues left behind at the scene. They tend to be above-average intelligence, in a skilled, professional occupation and are socially and sexually competent. They are usually married and may have children.

Summarised –

Constructing an FBI profile

There are four main stages in the construction of a top down profile:

1) Data assimilation – reviewing evidence from the crime scene
2) Crime scene classification – is it a organised or disorganised crime scene? 
3) Crime reconstruction – make predictions such as the sequence of events, behaviour of the offender and victim any pre planning that might have occurred and required actions
4) Profile generation – making predictions about the offender, e.g. demographic background, physical characteristics, behaviour etc based on the classification of the crime and the pre-established profile for that classification

Mindhunter (trailer below) Is a dramatisation of the process of developing the two types of crime scene and offender 

Strengths:

• Applications to real life: this method highlights common patterns and behaviours to murder scenes and classifies them. This helps the police to recognise common criminals and helps them to group them together so that they can successfully identify and prosecute criminals in court.
• Use of Qualitative data: this technique was developed by collecting a large amount of qualitative data through the use of interviews. This enabled the researchers to gain a deep insight to criminals behaviour, which helped them to understand why certain criminals committed certain crimes.

Weaknesses:

• Application to real life: it can be argued to have limited application because it only applies to certain crimes such as rape, arson and murder. More common offences such as burglary do not lend themselves to profiling because little can be gained from the scene of the crime.
• Lack of Individual differences: The technique is based on the assumption that offenders have consistent motivations and attitudes across all situations and contexts, underestimating the individual differences of offenders. It reduces criminal behaviour down into 2 specific types of crime scenes and as a result offenders. It can be argued to start holistic, during the data assimilation phase but reduces down during the crime classification stage.  Some crime scenes and offenders might not fit into just one type or the other, they might fit into both for 1 crime, or fit into one type for one crime and another type for another crime. Description of Ted Bundy below is a good example of how this can change. This technique doesn’t take this into account and oversimplifies the complexity of criminal behaviour, trends and patterns.  Canter (2004) analysed 100 murders and compared them to 39 characteristics associated with disorganised killers. Patterns were found for organised killers, but they were no consistent pattern for disorganised. Ironically, you can’t organise (categorise) a disorganised offender!
• Less useful due to being outdated: it could be argued that the top-down approach is an outdated model of criminal personality. This approach is based on research collected in the 1970’s and assumes that patterns of behaviour remain consistent across situations and contexts. However, crime has changed massively over the recent years, particularly with the introduction of technology. Therefore, this method may not be a valid predictor for potential suspects in today’s society.
• Generalisability/Culture & Gender Bias/ Ethnocentric: the initial research used 36 killers from the US. This makes it difficult to generalise the findings for a number of reasons. Firstly, the sample is unrepresentative. Secondly, it is based on Americans, and therefore it is only considering American culture. We cannot be sure that the same profiling would work in other cultures. Finally, the sample was made up of men, therefore this is androcentric and cannot be used to reflect female offenders.
• Deterministic and rigid: it is deterministic to assume that criminals can be placed into two distinct categories. Unanticipated events may occur during a crime which causes the offender to escalate to different patterns of events. Taking a deterministic view may mean that individuals are wrongly accused or investigated. For example Ted Bundy appeared to be organised for a lot of his crimes. He would bring a mask, rope, weapon, and he would stalk his victims prior to the attack. However, during one of his planned attacks, the woman managed to escaped. Ted then went on a killing spree and killed a number of women in a college dorm, this was not planned, but instead a retaliation of rage from his unsuccessful attack. The change in his MO suggests that there is an element of free will within his behaviour and the lack of consistency is due to choice rather than intellectual and social competency. 

• Reliability: the use if unstructured interviews means that the offenders were asked different questions. This lacks reliability as the procedures would have been inconsistent for each offender. In addition, it makes the research difficult to replicate in other countries, because there wasn’t a standardised procedure to follow.

Bottom-up approach AKA – The British approach

Canter (1990) is the UK’s foremost profiling expert, his bottom-up approach looks for consistencies in offenders’ behaviour during the crime. No initial assumptions are made about the offender and the approach relies heavily on objective research. The bottom-up approach bases its ideology on the belief that the little details that are often overlooked, can be crucial to the success of a case. 

Rather than being built on qualitative data, this system of offender profiling is based on statistical procedures alongside psychological theory i.e. Investigative psychology.

With bottom-up, there are no pre-made categories, so you’re starting from the bottom and building up to a profile of an offender. This system of offender profiling is based on statistical data alongside psychological theory.

There are 2 types of Bottom-Up profiling that we will cover in the course:

1. Investigative Psychology 
2. Geographical Profiling 

Investigative Psychology:

Evidence from previous crimes and offenders are added into a database, this is then used to identify patterns and trends about offender behaviour. When a crime is committed, as much detail from the crime scene is gathered and compared against the patterns in this database. Also, evidence from the new crime is also entered into the existing program, and may contribute towards variations of future profiles that are generated. In the bottom-up approach, an offender profile is generated by utilising the assumptions made from the database and the five factor model i.e. Investigative Psychology.  

Canter’s (2004) critique of the Top-Down Approach was partially motivated by a desire to see offender profiles built on objective data rather than an “intuition” based approach, such as that used by top-down profilers. Canter (2004) developed 5 factors about offenders. Canter’s work was developed over a period of several years and has been developed using psychological theory and objective data/research, he called this Investigative Psychology:

• • Forensic awareness – offenders who show an understanding of a police investigation are likely to have had previous encounters with the criminal justice system.
  • Interpersonal coherence – there is a consistency between the way offenders interact with their victims and with others in their everyday lives.
  • Villain’s characteristics – How the crime has been committed, suggests aspects of the offenders characteristics, based on evidence from previous criminal studies.
  • Early career – crimes tend to be committed in similar fashion by offenders and can provide indication of how their criminal activity will develop. It helps us to understand how the crimes may change due to the criminal becoming more experienced.
  • Space and time– the time and location of an offender’s crime will communicate something about their own place of residence/employment.

Use FIVES to help you remember the factors described above:

Forensic Awareness 

Interpersonal Coherence 

Villain’s Characteristics 

Earlier Crimes

Space and Time

Smallest Space Analysis

This is the output from the programmes used to generate a profile based on the evidence from the crime scene. The closer in to the middle the factors are when you rate them, the more likely they are to have a positive correlation with each other. In the inside circle segment, (smallest space) those behaviours occur together in 65% of cases, whereas in the outside circle the behaviour occurs together only in 20-25% of cases. So if there is a crime and the MO is a missing weapon, overkill, multiple sex acts and a posed body – it is likely that any further crimes with a similar MO or where there is a slight variation, will have the same offender.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNOW HOW TO READ THIS BUT IT’S HELPFUL TO UNDERSTAND HOW DIFFERENT FROM TOP DOWN THIS IS

Process of Bottom up Profiling: 

Geographical Profiling

This technique is used to make inferences about where an offender is likely to live. This is also known as crime mapping. Canter and Youngs (2008) identified that there are a number of telling clues regarding the place crimes are committed in relation to the offender. Geographical profiling can be used alongside investigative psychology. 

Uses information to do with the location of the linked crime scenes to make inferences about the likely home or operational base of an offender, also known as crime mapping. Geographical Profiling can be used in conjunction with psychological theory to create a hypothesis about how the offender is thinking and operating.

The expectation is that serial offenders will restrict their crimes to areas that they are familiar with and therefore paying attention to the location could suggest where the offender might be based.

The more offences there are, the more apparent a circle is likely to follow around their residence. This can help investigators make predictions about where killers are likely to strike next, this is known as Jeopardy surface.

Geographical profiling also gives important insight into other important factors about the offender; Mode of transport, employment, status and approximate age. 

Canter – John Duffy – The Railway Rapist.

Between 1975 and 1986 23 women were raped aged between 15 and 32 at railway stations in and around London. Canter became interested in the case after reading reports in the Evening Standard. In the early 1980’s two police officers were appointed to help him draw up an offender profile.  It was already known that there was an accomplice involved in the crimes.  Canter placed all the cases on a map and this allowed him to speculate about where the rapist might live.  He developed a Circle theory, and proposed two models of offender behaviour – ‘marauders’ or ‘commuters’. Depending on whether they strike from within their home base ‘marauders’ or travel away from home ‘commuters’.

Canter called it the circle theory as most offenders (marauders) do operate in an area they are familiar with and their crimes form a circle around their usual residence. See below the locations of some of the murders committed by Jack the Ripper.

It is more difficult to geographically profile commuters, although when investigators were looking at the disappearance and murder of 4 young girls from different and seemingly unrelated areas of Britain in the 1980’s, the dumping of the bodies in laybys next to major A roads (including Twycross, just up the road) led to a break through. It was realised that his likely occupation was delivery driver, giving him access to a van/lorry for easy transportation and led to him ‘commuting’ all over the country, travelling along A roads.

Strengths:

• Applications to real life: Bottom up has wider applications; it can be applied to other crimes, not just sexually motivated serial killers like top-down.
• Usefulness: Profiles can be useful in catching criminals. By identifying numerous pieces of information about the potential offender, it can narrow down the search criteria and make it easier to identify and find offenders. In addition, the use of computer systems also means that information can be collated and analysed quickly. This is useful because it can be used to assist investigations, and try and solve crimes more quickly.
• Validity: There is evidence to support investigative psychology. Canter & Heritage (1990) analysed 66 sexual assault cases using a computer based programme and identified clear common patterns of behaviour such as impersonal language, and lack of reaction to the victim. There is also evidence supports geographical profiling Lundrigan & Canter (2001) collated evidence from 120 murder cases and found that the offender’s home base was invariably located in the centre of the crime scene pattern.
• Scientific: The use of computer databases and previous research makes this approach more scientific than top down typologies. This is because there is less chance of human error or bias and the technique is supported by established research.
• Holistic: The combination of investigative psychology and geographical profiling makes it holistic as it is considering a number of contributing factors when profiling an offender e.g. location, time, offender behaviour, employment, criminal characteristics etc. Being holistic means that it may be more accurate, as it is ensuring that no stone goes un-turned.

Weaknesses:

• Usefulness: Police must be careful not to be blinded to other possibilities when using bottom-up profiling. Occasionally criminals do not fit the profile. Over use could lead to miscarriages of justice. E.g. Paul Britton’s misleading profile in the hunt for the killer of Rachel Nickell. Rachel was stabbed 47 times and sexually assaulted. This was all witnessed by her 2 year old son.

• Ethnocentrism: This technique was produced in Britain and based on the typical criminal activity and offenders in this country. It may not be applicable in other cultures where criminal patterns may be very different.