Offender Profiling: The Top Down Approach

The Top Down Approach This Approach originate with the FBI in the US, it was developed to solve the most bizarre and extreme murder cases and designed to produce a profile of a likely offender. It is regarded as a more intuitive application of a profiler's prior knowlegde. Created by Douglas et al 2006

1.Profiling Inputs: Data is collected such as a description of the crime scene -Phototgraphs and sketches-, background information about the victim-employment, habits, relationships- and details of the crime itself-weapon, cause of death autopsy report-. All information is considered even if it seems trivial. Possible suspects shouldn't be included as it could bias information collected.

2. Decision Process Models: Makes decisions about the data and organises it into meaningful patterns. Murder Type- Mass, Spree or serial murders (Spree- number of people are killed at one time such as in one hour, serial murders are commited over and extended period of time such as several months) Time Factors- did the crime take a short or long…