Offender profiling: The top-down approach

Offender Profiling  - A behavioural and analytical tool employed by the police when solving crimes. Proffesional profilers will work alongside the police, especially in murder cases. compiling of a profile usually involves careful scruting of the crime scene and analysis of the evidence. In order to generate hypothesis about probable characteristics of the offender. 

The American appraoch 
The top-down approach to profiling originated in the United States as a result of work carried out by the FBI in the 1970s. More specifically, the FBIs behavioural science 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 using this method will match what is known about the crime and offender with a pre-existing template. Murderers and rapists are classified in on of two categories (organised or disorganised) on the basis of the evidence, this classification informs the subsequent police investigation. 

Types of offender 
Offenders have ways of working that generally correlate with a particular set of social and psychological characteristics…