What does this crime scene tell you about the offender responsible?

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What does this crime scene tell you about the
offender responsible?
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Two important ideas

• Behavioural evidence
• Things that tells us how an offender went about
  committing a crime
• Criminal consistency
• The idea that a persons behaviour at a crime
  scene is consistent with their behaviour in other
  contexts

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Todays session
You are learning about... You are learning to...
Typological offender profiling Draw inferences from behavioural data Apply profiling principles to make judgements about offenders Compare and contrast psychological ideas
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Typological offender profiling

• Developed by the US Federal Bureau of
  Investigation (FBI) in the 1970s and 1980s.
• Key ideas
• There are different types of offender
• Behavioural evidence can tell us which type of
  offender committed a crime
• Knowing an offenders type allows us to predict
  other things about him
• Generally used in cases of serial violence
  against strangers esp. sexual or bizarre

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FBI profiling process
Profile generation Offenders physical,
demographic and behavioural characteristics
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Types of crime scene
Organised Disorganised
General approach Planned and controlled Unplanned and chaotic
Weapons Brought to the scene Improvised
Evidence Destroyed or removed Left at scene
Victim Attempts to control Little attempt at control
Offender Unknown to victim Socially sexually competent Normal/high intelligence Angry/depressed Possibly known to victim Socially sexually inept Low intelligence Anxious/psychotic
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Profile these crime scenes

• Use the evidence to construct a profile
• Organised or disorganised
• Behavioural evidence
• Known characteristics of serial offenders
• Your profile should
• Tell the story of the crime
• Describe the person responsible

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Problems with typological profiling

• What problems can you identify with the FBIs
  approach to offender profiling?
• Assumptions about stable types
• Incomplete data
• Subjective judgements
• Small and unusual sample
• Validity of methodology
• Narrative anecdotal evidence

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Compare and contrast

• How are geographical and typological offender
  profiling similar and different?
• Purpose
• Assumptions
• Use of categories/types
• Types of crime applicable
• Evidence base

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• Describe and evaluate one or more approaches to
  offender profiling.