Criminal profiling, sometimes referred to as offender profiling, is an investigative technique employed by law enforcement organizations to pinpoint potential suspects and establish connections between instances that might have been perpetrated by the same offender.[/2] A single criminal may be connected to several crimes, and the profile may be utilized to forecast the offender’s future behavior.
R. Ressler (FBI), the father of contemporary profiling, defined profiling as the process of determining every psychological trait of a person and creating a broad portrait of their personality based on an examination of the crimes they have committed.[/3]
History of Criminal profiling
The essay “Instruction to the Speaker” by Quintilian, written in the first century AD, contains information regarding gestures employed by people at that time, and R.S. Feldman claims that this is the furthest reference to the use of profiles.[4]
According to M. Woodworth and S. Porter, the infamous “Hammer of Witches,” which was produced in the fifteenth century and contains psychological profiles of witches, should be regarded as the first work on the subject of profiling.
Some people also believe that the first “professional profiler” was Allan Edgar Poe’s literary hero from “Murder in the Rue Morgue” (published in 1841), who employed the technique of creating a psychological portrait of the murderer.[6] The earliest scientifically-based work (dating from the 19th century)
Even though it merely described outward manifestations, it was a systematization and the start of a scientific investigation into the problem.(7)
Detectives from the Metropolitan Police created the first offender profile based on the characteristics of serial killer Jack the Ripper,[8] who killed many prostitutes in the 1880s. Thomas Bond, a police surgeon, was asked to assess the murderer’s level of surgical expertise and understanding.[1]
Bond based his conclusion on the post mortem reports from the four prior canonical murders as well as his personal analysis of the deceased who had been the most severely disfigured.In [9] Bond noted the apparent misogyny and fury, as well as the sexual character of the murders, in his notes dated November 10, 1888.
Theory
According to its description, psychological profiling is a technique for identifying suspects that looks for a person’s mental, emotional, and personality traits based on actions or items left at the crime scene.10]
When it comes to offender profiling, two main presumptions are made: homology and behavioral consistency. The concept of behavior consistency states that an offender’s crimes will typically resemble one another. The theory of homology holds that comparable criminals commit similar crimes.11]In [12]13]
The homology assumption, one of the fundamental presumptions on which offender profiling is based, has been shown to be obsolete by developments in behavioral science and psychology.In [14]In [15] Most profiling techniques operate under the mistaken assumption that personality, rather than situational factors, is the primary determinant of behavior. This is an assumption that has been disproved by psychological research ever since the 1960s.In [16]13]
It has been observed that profilers are somewhat hesitant to take part in research on the accuracy of profiling.(17)18]13][16]
According to a 2021 article, 188 of the 243 cases were resolved using the use of criminal profiling.13]
Criticism
Even though offender profiling is a commonly employed, well-researched, and advertised strategy worldwide as of 2021, there is a dearth of empirical data or supporting evidence for the applicability of psychological profiling in criminal investigations.19]20] Critics contest the accuracy, usefulness, and legitimacy of criminal profiles that are typically supplied in police investigations.
Due to inadequate definitions that distinguish between the behaviors of the criminal and assumptions about the psychodynamic process of the offender, prevalent criminal profiling techniques have evolved and come to be despised over time.[Reference required]
To put it another way, this results in subpar and inaccurate profiles of offenders since the decisions and opinions made by a single profiler who is researching the offender are used. Studies conducted in 2007 and 2008 about the efficacy of profiling have led scholars to classify the process as pseudoscientific.18]21]
The New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell at the time likened profiling to astrology and psychic reading.21] Criminal profiling has been criticized by some for being an investigative technique with little backing from science.21]
Unregulated usage
Criminal profiling is a very unregulated business.23] People who identify as criminal profilers can have anywhere from little to a lot of expertise in the field of criminal investigation because there is no regulatory body that establishes qualifications for criminal profilers.23]
There is less empirical evidence to support the accuracy of criminal profiling, in addition to the absence of standards for defining an expert in the subject.24] An abundance of anecdotal evidence supports criminal profiling, most of it comes from reports from investigators and police officers about the work that criminal profilers conduct.24]
Nonetheless, research indicates that although law enforcement officials strongly advocate for the use of criminal profiling, detectives themselves are not very good at it.23]24] According to one study, police officers were given two distinct profiles for the same offender, both of which differed significantly from the officers’ own accounts.Reference [25]
It was discovered that the officers believed all of the profiles accurately represented the offender and were unable to decide which one was more accurate than the others. The Barnum effect was evident as officers were able to identify truth in any profile they looked at, thinking it correctly represented the offender.Reference [25](26]
Furthermore, the perception of the information’s source influences an investigator’s assessment of a profile’s accuracy; if the officer thinks the profile was created by a “professional” or “expert,” they are likely to consider it to be more accurate than one created by a consultant.In [27] This is a serious issue given that there are no real standards that define who qualifies as a “professional” criminal profiler and that police officers’ opinions dominate the debate over criminal profiling.23]24]
Typologies
The most popular typology in profiling is the “organized” or “disorganized” classification of crime scenes and, consequently, offenders’ personalities.In [16]21] Roy Hazelwood, an FBI profiler, is credited with coming up with the concept of categorizing crime scenes based on the organized/disorganized dichotomy.(28)
Robert Keppel and Richard Walter have proposed a typology of serial sexual killings that classifies them as power-assertive, power-reassurance, anger-retaliatory, or anger-excitation.In [16]
Ex-ante or ex-post criminal profiling are further options. One sort of ex-post profiling that can be utilized to stop a serial killer from killing again is descriptive profiling of the offender.29]
Approaches
The criminal investigative technique, the clinical practitioner approach, and the scientific statistical approach are the three main methods used in the field of offender profiling. Law enforcement, and more especially the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU), uses the criminal investigative approach.
The Behavior Analysis Unit (BAU) “assists law enforcement agencies by their review and assessment of a criminal act, by interpreting the offender’s behavior during the crime and the interactions between the offender and the victim during the commission of the crime and as expressed in the crime scene.”11] The clinical practitioner method is highly individualized since it emphasizes viewing every case as unique.
According to one practitioner, Turco, all violent crimes stem from a mother-child conflict in which the victim is a woman who represents the offender’s mother. This is known as the psychodynamic method as well. A different practitioner, Copson, listed some guidelines for creating personalized, interactive, and reflective profiles. By adhering to these guidelines, the profile should provide guidance that is original and devoid of stereotypes, be simple enough for people of all IQ levels to grasp, and have an impact on each other.11]
The multivariate analysis of actions and any other information from the crime scene that may provide insight into the psychological processes or features of the offender is a major component of the scientific method.
Using this method, the profile’s components are created by contrasting the analysis’s findings with those of offenders who have already been apprehended.11]
The three primary paradigms of profiling listed by Wilson, Lincon, and Kocsis are investigative psychology, crime scene investigation, and diagnostic evaluation.[/30] Four were identified by Ainsworth [31]: investigative psychology, typological profiling (also known as crime scene analysis), clinical profiling (also known as diagnostic evaluation), and geographical profiling.33]
One of the five processes in profiling is to analyze the criminal act and compare it to previous instances of similar crimes. Two: A thorough examination of the real crime scene, Three: Examining the victim’s history and behaviors for linkages and potential motives; Four: Examining other potential motives. Five: Creating a profile of the potential offender that may be contrasted with earlier instances.33]
Linkage analysis is one name for one kind of criminal profiling. Linkage analysis, according to Gerard N. Labuschagne, is “a form of behavioral analysis that is used to determine the possibility that a series of crimes as having been committed by one offender.”34]
A linkage analysis can be established by compiling several characteristics of the offender’s criminal pattern, including their signature, ritual or fantasy-based activities, and modus operandi (MO). The habits or inclinations of the perpetrator during the victim’s murder are known as their modus operandi. A killer’s signature consists of the distinct parallels between every kill. Linkage analysis is mostly employed in situations when gathering physical evidence—like DNA—is not possible.
According to Labuschagne, investigators need to carry out five evaluation methods in order to compile and include these elements of the offender’s criminal pattern: One: Gathering information from many sources. Two: Examining the information and determining the key elements of every crime in the series. Three: Assigning a modus operandi or ritualistic classification to the noteworthy elements. Four: Examining if a signature is there by comparing the modus operandi and ritualistic or fantasy-based elements used throughout the series. Five: Writing up a report that summarizes the results.34]