Offender profiling: the Bottom-up Approach / Investigative Psychology - Forensic Psychology

INVESTIGATIVE PSYCHOLOGY

A01:

Investigate Psychology is…a form of bottom-up profiling based on psychological therapy and applying statistical procedures to analyse crime-scene evidence.

David Canter proposed a 5-factor model of crime scene behaviour – which occurs in different patterns, in different individuals, and so has been helpful in establishing whether two or more offenses were committed by the same person. These include:

1. Interpersonal Coherence, which assumes that offenders deal with their victims in the same way that they deal with people in their everyday lives. It is common for victims to represent significant people in the offenders’ life, outside of the criminal event – for example, Ted Bundy’s victims represented his ex-girlfriend. 

2. Forensic Awareness, which highlights if they have any knowledge of forensic investigation (eg. if they attempt to conceal their identity by removing vital evidence from the crime scene)

3. Time and place, which gives an indication of their schedule (eg. what time they work) and where they may live.

A03:

Copson (1995) surveyed 48 police officers and found that 83% had deemed the advice given profile to be useful – but only 3% claimed that the evidence had actually identified the offender. Therefore, the overall usefulness of this approach should be questioned if it is not successfully identifying many criminals – which is its main aim.

In addition, this approach is based heavily on research and statistical likelihood – meaning that it’s viewed as being a more scientific method compared to the top-down approach. This use of statistics and theory has removed intuition of the profiler from the process, which arguably makes it more reliable.