Introduction to Psychology: Forensic Psychology

Offender Profiling

What is Offender Profiling?

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5POzN5urKvw

Use this video to help you generate a description of Offender Profiling.

What is Offender Profiling?

• Offender Profiling is a tool often used by the police when solving crimes- most typically serious crimes including rape and murder.

• The aim of offender profiling is to narrow down the list of suspects in a particular crime.

• Often characteristics of an offender can be deduced from characteristics of crime

• Careful scrutiny of crime scene and evidence (including witness reports) can often give a hypothesis about offender, including details such as:• Age

• Background

• Occupation

Types of Offender Profiling…

THE TOP-DOWN APPROACH:

• Used widely in the US

THE BOTTOM-UP APPROACH:

• Used widely in the UK

The Top-Down 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 1970s.

• The top-down approach to profiling originated in the US as a result of work carried out by the FBI in the 1970s. More specifically, the FBI’s Behavioural Science Unit drew upon data gathered from in-depth interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial killers including Ted Bundy and Charles Manson.

• Also known as the typology approach, offender profilers who use this method will match what is known about the crime and the offender to a pre-existing template that the FBI developed. Murderers or rapists are classified in one of two categories (organised or disorganised) on the basis of the evidence, and this classification informs the subsequent police investigation.

There are 4 main stages to Top-Down Profiling:

1. Data assimilation-reviewing evidence (photos, pathology & witness reports)

2. Crime scene classification- deciding whether the crime is organised or disorganised.

3. Crime reconstruction- generating a hypothesis in terms of sequence of events, behaviour of victim and suspect.

4. Profile generation- hypothesis relating to the likely offender.

Over to you…

You will be given 2 case studies to read.

It is your job to use the Top-Down approach to come up with an offender profile for each of the case studies.

HINTS:

How would you classify each crime/offender? (Organised/disorganised).

Can you justify your choice? What about the situation/crime scene suggest this?

What characteristics (e.g. age, personality, social abilities) of the offender might you be able to hypothesise using this?

Challenge: Can you give criticism to the Top-Down approach?

Case Study 1:• A suspected serial killer is thought to have abducted/killed a number of women. The

missing/killed women are similar in some ways. All of them are middle-class, between the ages of 18-25, Caucasian, slim-built and single. They wear their hair long, with a part in the middle. All of them have gone missing in the evening in places where young people gather, including colleges, beaches, ski resorts and discos. Victims are from a variety of states, including Utah and Washington. Of the women killed in Utah, each murder has a similar trait. The killer had used a blunt object to strike them over the head. He also abused each woman through rape. Fortunately, authorities have been able to build a partial profile of their perpetrator starting with the escape of a young woman, who escaped an attack at a mall in Utah and provided police with a description of the man who'd assaulted her. She was also able to give a description of the perpetrators car and had some blood on her jacket. The young woman said the perpetrator had approached her with his leg in a fake cast, walking on crutches and asking for help in carrying something to his car.

Case Study 2:

• A series of murders have been linked by the use of one gun: • One drive-by shooting of a 51-year-old engineer and father of two, who was carrying

groceries into his home. • A shooting of a 22-year old woman, 3-months pregnant. The young woman was

murdered in her own home after the perpetrator broke in and shot her three times. There were multiple stab wounds found on the body, the nipples were removed, internal organs were removed and a severe lack of blood. Blood was found in the bath-tub- investigators suspect the perpetrator bathed in the victims blood. Dog faeces was found in the victims mouth and throat. An empty yoghurt-container was found containing the victims blood.

• Mass murder: 38-year old woman, 22-month-old boy, 6-year old boy, 51-year old man was babysitting for his neighbour while she was in the bath. Both children were found murdered in the house. The 38-year old woman was found in the bedroom with stab wounds to her neck, anus, and vital points on the body. A huge amount of blood was missing. The 51-year old male was not found at the scene of the crime, despite a large amount of his blood being present.

• Sperm was found at the scenes of crime involving both women.

The Bottom-Up Approach

• The bottom-up approach to offender profiling is sometimes known as the British approach, and is a data-driven approach that makes use of statistical data on similar crimes that have been committed, in order to make predictions about the characteristics of an offender.

• The aim of the bottom-up approach is to generate a picture of the offender –their likely characteristics, routine behaviour and social background – through systematic analysis of evidence at the crime scene.

• Unlike the US top-down approach, the British bottom-up model does not begin with fixed typologies. Instead, the profile is ‘data-driven’ and emerges as the investigator engages in deeper and more rigorous scrutiny of the details of the offence.

• Bottom-up profiling is also much more grounded in psychological theory than the top-down approach.

Investigative Psychology…• Investigative psychology attempts to apply statistical procedures and

psychological theory to the analysis of crime scenes in order to establish patterns of behaviour.

• Central to the approach is interpersonal coherence – that the way in which the offender behaves at the scene, including how they ‘interact’ with the victim, may reflect their behaviour in more everyday situations e.g. while some rapists want to maintain max. control and humiliate their victims, others are more apologetic (Dwyer, 2001). This might tell police something about how the offender relates to women more generally

• The significance of time and place is also a key variable; it may indicate where the offender lives

• Forensic awareness; describes those individuals who have been the subject of police interrogation before, so their behaviour may denote how mindful they are of ‘covering their tracks’

Geographic Profiling…

• Geographic profiling uses information about the location of linked crime scenes to make inferences about the likely home or operational base of an offender.

• Based on the idea of spatial consistency, which suggests that serial offenders will restrict their work to geographical areas that they are familiar with.

• Understanding the spatial pattern of behaviour allows investigators to determine a centre of gravity for the offender.

• It may also help investigators make educated guesses about where the offender is likely to strike next – known as the ‘jeopardy surface’

• The pattern of offending is likely to form a circle around their usual residence – this becomes more apparent with the more offences there are

• Such spatial decision making can offer the investigative team important insight into the nature of the offence i.e. planned or opportunistic, offenders ‘mental maps’, mode of transport, employment status, approximate age etc.

Over to you…

TASK 1:

Read the case study given to you.

Using the Bottom-Up approach, what offender characteristics might we

deduce from the information given?

TASK 2:

Using Geographic Profiling, follow the instructions on the

sheet to identify which of 3 suspects you would lean

toward for committing armed robbery.

suggesting minimal dominance over victims

Small, ‘weaker’ victims were selected Variety of sexual actions suggest considerable sexual experience

Can you suggest the following characteristics:Physical (age, height, build), single, married, children?, occupation, character (socially), criminal record?

The Dangers of Offender Profiling…

PLENARY:

Which of the two approaches, Top-Down or Bottom-Up, do you think is more effective? Give a reason for your answer.