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offender profiling (The American Approach – ‘Top-down’ Approach (tended to…

- - - - suggests that profiling is most useful when the
        crime scene reflects psychopathology
      - 90% of profiling attempts involve murder or rape
  - - - caused great panic amongst society and mystified the police
      - Dr Phillips (1888)
        
        he drew conclusions about the killer’s personality by examining the wounds of the victims
        
        concluded that killer must have had some medical training cos some of victim’s organs had removed with skill only a medical professional would have
- - - - proposed that the offender:
        
        lived in the area circumscribed by the first three cases
        
        probably lived with wife/girlfriend;
        
        mid-to-late-20s
        
        knowledge of the railway system
        
        Possibly lived without children
        
        righthanded
        
        semi-skilled or skilled job with weekend work
        
        criminal record, involving violence
    - - He:
        
        was separated from his wife, was in his late
        
        20s, right-handed
        
        was known to the police for having raped his wife at knifepoint
        
        was a travelling carpenter for British Rail
        
        lived in Kilburn (North London)
      - Out of 2000 suspects, Duffy was number 1505
        
        Canter’s profile enabled the police to make an arrest
  - - - A picture of the criminal is then suggested
- - - - Whilst walking her two-year-old son on Wimbledon Common,
        Rachel Nickell was stabbed 49 times
      - the profiler prepared a psychological profile for the police
        
        Colin Stagg fitted the profile
        
        However, there was No Evidence.
        
        Working with Britton, a female officer went undercover and got to know Stagg in the hope of extracting evidence from him
        
        however 'got the wrong guy'
  - - - carried out a survey with detectives from 184 cases where offender profiling had been used
      - found that police believed that profiling led to identification of offender in 2.7 per cent of cases + helped to solve 16% of cases.
    - - asked groups of detectives, students, profilers + clinical psychologists look at 2 closed police cases + draw up profiles
      - One case was a sex case, and the
        other was a homicide
      - findings
        
        Although profilers produced more detailed profiles + were more accurate in the sex case, the detectives were more accurate in the homicide