Criminal Typology Essay

Two dark brown eyes stare intensely and continuously at the small square bedroom. They slowly shift from one section of the room to the next, examining every detail and every object. Suddenly, the eyes dart downwards to a pair of hands rustling through a folder. Out emerges documents, reports, sketches, and photographs. The hand raises the photograph in the air and the eyes drift from the photograph to the bedroom, comparing and analyzing every detail. The man’s brain is in full gear, cranking and grinding, trying to work as fast and effectively as it can to understand the crime scene, victim, and offender. People are probably wondering what this man is doing. The photograph that he has just pulled out were photos of a crime scene that had

The most used typology is the FBI’s organized-disorganized dichotomy (Snook, Cullen, Bennell, & et al, 2008). An organized offender are high functioning individuals that plan their crime, while a disorganized offender are low functioning individuals that commit unplanned crimes (Snook, Cullen, Bennell, & et al, 2008). This has been a major component in the practice of criminal profiling because it has finally brought some form of unity amongst criminal profilers. However, there are people that believe these to be false typologies. Snook, Cullen, Bennell, and et al (2008) explain that these typologies do not match the variation in offender behavior. For example, researchers examined 100 murder cases to try and categorize them as disorganized or organized. They found that only 39 cases fit those categories, the rest did not reveal distinct subsets (Snook, Cullen, Bennell, & et al, 2008). This means that a criminal does not all the time match up with just one category perfectly. In addition, researchers Vettor, Woodhams, and Beech (2013), said that these typologies were not even quantitatively tested or based on methodological research. This makes it hard for any law enforcement to actually rely on these