Top-Down Approach - Canter et al

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For the essay  of Describe the top-down approach (10 marks)

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The top-down approach refers to taking an approach to human behaviour where an individual's prior cognitive and problem solving skills are applied to new situations to help an understanding of the circumstance. It begins with making an initial assumption and then looking for details to support this. It can be applied to the legal system where at any crime scene, investigators make a general hypothesis and then look for details to support this.

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Douglas worked for the FBI and argued that from the crime scene you can categorise the murderer into three types. Organised killers lived an orderly life, had an average to high IQ, socially competent and reflected in their crimes where the weapon would be disposed of, no fingerprints and planned prefectly. Disorganised killers had no pre-planning and would commit the crime due to…


Laura Shannon Harford


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