Law Enforcement – Criminal Profiling
If you’ve seen the movie “Silence of the Lambs” or seen the television show “Profiler,” you’ve heard of criminal profiling.
Profiling a criminal – trying to find a criminal by using his behavior to define his personality – is called many things. The FBI is generally credited with developing much of the criminal profiling within the law enforcement community, but psychology has played a key role in adding to what we know about profiling and helping to refine profiling methods.
Profiling’s goal is to help investigators examine evidence from crime scenes and victim and witness reports to develop an offender description. The description can include personality traits and behavior patterns, as well as age, race or geographic location. Investigators might use profiling to narrow down a field of suspects or figure out how to interrogate a suspect already in custody.
Although the field of profiling is still developing, in recent years, many psychologists–together with criminologists and law enforcement officials–have begun using psychology’s statistical and research methods to bring more science into the art of profiling. And psychologists have helped law enforcement by using their behavioral expertise to develop profiles of criminals.
Informal criminal profiling has a long history. It was used as early as the 1880s, when two physicians, George Phillips and Thomas Bond, used crime scene clues to make predictions about British serial murderer Jack the Ripper’s personality.
At the same time, profiling has taken root in the United States, where, until recent decades, profilers relied mostly on their own intuition and informal studies.
In 1974, the FBI formed its Behavioral Science Unit to investigate serial rape and homicide cases. The unit developed the idea of the “organized/disorganized dichotomy”: Organized crimes are premeditated and carefully planned, so little evidence is found at the scene. Organized criminals, according to the classification scheme, are antisocial but know right from wrong, are not insane and show no remorse. Disorganized crimes, in contrast, are not planned, and criminals leave such evidence as fingerprints and blood. Disorganized criminals may be young, under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or mentally ill.
One FBI agent says the basic premise is that behavior reflects personality. The FBI will look at evidence of how a murderer behaved during a crime to try to figure out the criminal’s personality – and to catch the criminal.
A rape case is analyzed in much the same way, but with the additional information that comes from a living victim. Everything about the crime, from the sexual acts the rapist forces on the victim, to the order in which they’re performed, offers a clue about the perpetrator.
Psychologists have been helping to step up profiling’s scientific rigor. Some psychologists have been conducting their own criminal profiling research, and what they’ve found can change some of the FBI’s key theories such as whether the organized/disorganized divide among criminals is as wide as once thought. In addition, psychologists are using what they know about human behavior to develop profiles that helps law enforcement in their hunt for criminals.
Source: The American Psychological Association
