1. Offender Profiling

2. American Approach Top Down processing – this means that they use their past knowledge of crime scenes and offenders to build up a picture of the perpetrator They have had a fairly comprehensive database since the 1970’s They have typologies such as lust, thrill, sadistic and mission killers

3. American Approach They work by a set of rules when a serious crime has occurred: Assimilate Data Classify the crime, Reconstruct the crime Develop the full profile This would only be done in the case of weird crimes. For instance, something strange about the person’s personality is clear from the nature of the crime

4. American Approach Criticisms Not enough case studies used to build up a classification system Over simplistic and not helpful for detective No reports on how useful it is

5. American Approach

6. British Approach Bottom up – involves looking at the crime scene and building up a picture that way This approach is difficult to generalise, as different police forces are free to operate any way they like It is said to be more scientific than the American approach because it is based on clear psychological principles. This means that aspects of the crime will run right through the offenders life. You could put the level of aggression onto a scale and there should be indicators of this scale of violence in other parts of his life.

7. British Approach Criticisms There is very little collaboration across different police forces in Britain The forensic psychologists in Britain do not work together and they disagree about a lot e.g. David Canter and Paul Britton. Some hard evidence from the crime scene is needed for bottom up processing to start.

8. British Approach Interpersonal Consistency The behaviour of the offender at the time of the crime will be comparable to what they’re like in every day life Degree of violence used in serious crimes, especially rape, may reflect how the criminal treats other women in his non- criminal life Spatial Consistency Marauders – Commit their crimes close to where they live or feel secure. – Usually disorganised criminals Commuters – Commit their crimes away from where they usually live – Usually organised