A2 Psychology Offender Profiling. HELP!!!!

I'm supposed to know bottom up and top down and how it works etc. but i don't have a clue and the notes my teacher has given me are real rubbish. can any one help?

Reply 1

Leaby

OK, been revising this today, let's see how much I can remember!

Offender profiling aims to compile a list of offender characteristics based on qualities such as age, race, gender, etc. Qualities about the crime commited are also noted, as this can reflect how the criminal acts in his everyday life.

The American Approach is called the 'top-down' approach, meaning that the evidence of a crime is always looked at in light of a certain theory. Offenders are grouped into criminals of 'organised' and 'disorganised.' 'Organised' criminals plan their offences, and this is seen in their care to remove evidence from the crime scene and the attack is likely to be on someone they know. 'Disorganised' criminals, on the other hand, do not plan their crimes and commit them impulsively. The victim is unlikely to be someone they know.
Organised criminals are generally in real life seen to be happily married and financially stable individuals. Disorganised criminals are likely to have an unskilled job and not have a partner.

The British Approach to profiling is known as the 'bottom-down' approach (think how English people are more likely to use the word 'bottom' than Americans!), meaning that all the evidence of a crime scene is collected together before devising a theory based on it.
Canter, who devised the British approach, based his theory on scientific psychological studies so this approach is seen to be quite credible. He argued that all aspects of a crime can indicate how a criminal acts in their non-criminal life: the degree of violence used in a rape for example, can indicate how a man may treat women in normal life - some can be very controlling and violent during the crime. Others are less violent and even "apologetic."

Evaluative points include that both approaches were devised on studies which had small samples. The American approach in particular never published reports about its success rate.

Hope this is of help... I wish I could remember more than that off the top of my head! It's methods I'm screwed on tomorrow...

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