Term
| What is offender profiling? |
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Definition
| An investigative technique to identify the major personality and behavioural characteristics of the offender based on analysis of the crime. |
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Term
| What is the typology approach? |
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Definition
| Where evidence from the crime scene and existing knowledge about offender behaviour is used to form a hypothesis about the offender. |
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Term
| What are the names of the three categories the offenders are put into? What is special about the third? |
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Definition
| Organised, disorganised and mixed. The mixed category was added later. |
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Term
| What characteristics does a disorganised crime scene have? (three main things) What characteristics would the offender have? (four main things) |
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Definition
-Crime scene would be messy, with a lot of evidence. The victim wasn't bound and there is little evidence the crime has been planned.
-The offender is likely to have below average intelligence, poor social skills and lives alone, perhaps close to the crime scene. They may suffer from a psychological disturbance. |
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Term
| What characteristics does an organised crime scene have? (three main things) What characteristics would the offender have? (three main things) |
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Definition
-The crime scene has little evidence, the body is bound and trophies have been taken.
-The offender may have above average intelligence but be an underachiever and in a relationship. They are likely to have angry, frustrated, depressive moods. |
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Term
| The mixed category is used when offenders don't fit into either category. Why is this a weakness of the typology approach? (two reasons) |
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Definition
-It is vague so it is unclear who fits in that category
-It means the other typology groups are less relevant |
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Term
| The typology approach is a four stage process. What are the four stages? |
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Definition
1) Data assimilation - data compiled from police reports, post mortems, crime scene photos
2) Crime scene classification
3) Crime reconstruction - Hypothesis about crime sequence, offender and victim behaviour is created
4) Profile generation - A profile of offender's physical, demographic and behavioural characteristics is generated |
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Term
| Where did the information that the typology approach is based on come from? |
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Definition
| The typology approach is based on information from interviews with 36 convicted serial killers and rapists. |
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Term
| What are the weaknesses of the typology approach being based upon information from interviews with 36 convicted serial killers and rapists? (four weaknesses) |
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Definition
- 36 is a small sample size so the information may not be representative and generalisable
- Biased sample - Only convicted rapists and killers so there is information for only two types of offence and convicted offenders may have specific characteristics
- Researcher bias - The interview provides qualitative data that may be interpreted differently by different people
- Information may be incorrect due to it being retrospective or the offender not being truthful |
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Term
| What are the strengths of the typology approach? (four strengths) |
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Definition
-It has been influential and adapted and enhanced by law enforcement worldwide
-Offender typologies are helpful in linking offences and predicting the next offence
-The typology categories are useful to challenge stereotypes
-Forming an offender profile reduces field of investigation |
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Term
| What are the weaknesses of the typology approach? (four weaknesses) |
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Definition
-Many offenders show both organised and disorganised characteristics and can change between crimes
-Crime scene evidence may be incomplete and ambiguous so different profilers draw up different conclusions from the same evidence.
- There have been few attempts to establish the validity of the approach using scientific methods.
-Profilers tend to only report successes, giving a biased view of how much profiles help with catching offenders. |
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Term
| Canter used information from 100 serial killers and 100 murderers to test the validity of the organised and disorganised categories. What were his results? |
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Definition
| Organised characteristics were present in most offenders but disorganised characteristics were much rarer and didn't occur often enough to be considered a type. |
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