Criminal Profiling

1. CRIME AND SOCIETY
UNIT 2

2. LECTURE 1
Criminal Profiling - Introduction
and history

3. Criminal Profiling
• Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is a
behavioral and investigative tool that is intended to help
investigators to accurately predict and profile the
characteristics of unknown criminal subjects or
offenders.
• Offender profiling is also known as criminal profiling,
criminal personality profiling, criminological profiling,
behavioral profiling

4. Investigative Psychology
• DEFINITION:The application of psychology to criminal
investigation.
• Profiling—one of the tasks often associated with investigative
psychology—requires sketching the significant psychological and
demographic features of a person or persons.
• Broadly defined, investigative psychology includes research and practice
involving:
-Profiling -RiskAssessment
-Police Line-ups -Interrogation
-Polygraph Hypnosis -Other?
-

5. What is Criminal Profiling?
• Criminal profiling is the process of identifying
personality traits, behavioral tendencies,
geographical location, and demographic or
biographical descriptors of an offender (or
offenders) based on crime scene characteristics.

6. Goals of Profiling
• The primary goal of profiling is to narrow the field of
possible suspects.
• Profiling is also a form of prediction -- the profiler
tries to “predict” who the offender or offenders
might be and where and how the next crime may
occur.

7. Brief History of Criminal Profiling
• 1940s - First recorded use by psychiatrist Walter Langer
duringWWII commissioned to construct a
psychodynamic profile of Hitler.
• 1957 - psychiatrist James Brussels worked with NYPD to
construct a profile of the Mad Bomber.
• 1970s-1980s - FBI (HowardTeten, John Douglas, Robert
Ressler, Roy Hazelwood, and others) became involved in
psychological profiling and popularized the technique.
• 1990s – 2003 - attempt (by David Canter, Maurice
Godwin, Ron Holmes, Robert Keppel, BrentTurvey, Kim
Rossmo and others) to scientize profiling and move the
practice beyond the purview of the FBI.

8. The FBI Profilers
• Small/prominent group of FBI profilers helped to popularize the
term in 1970s in the Behavioral Science Unit -- called the National
Center for the Analysis ofViolent Crime (NCAVC) since 1984.
• Responsible for establishing the Violent Criminal Apprehension
Program (VICAP). Published Crime Classification Manual, Sexual
Homicide: Patterns and Motives and true crime novels.
• Are known for the ORGANIZED/DISORGANIZED typology and focus
on M.O. and SIGNATURE.
• Criticized for relying too much on intuition/faulty use of the scientific
method.

9. Is Profiling a Science or Profession?
• Profiling has not yet achieved the status of a profession. Factors
hindering professionalization:
• Lack of consensus (on terms, approaches, training, appropriate
experience/educational background, etc.).
• Practical issues (sensitivity and confidentiality of cases).
• Ego/territorial issues.
• Absence of uniform standards, practices, peer review, and ethics.
• Small number (if any) of profiling positions where profiling is the primary job
description.
• The notion (and acknowledgement among many profilers) that profiling is
more art than science.

10. Assumptions Made in the Profiling Process
• Crime scene reflects the personality of the offender.
• M.O. remains similar.
• Signature will remain the same.
• Offender’s personality will not change.

11. M.O. and Signature
• METHOD OF OPERATION (M.O.)
• How the offender committed the crime.Tells about the experience of
the offender and situational/contextual factors involved in the crime.
• SIGNATURE
• The behavior/expression of fantasy the killer must leave at the scene to
satisfy emotional/psychological needs. Goes beyond what’s necessary
to commit crime and tells about the offender’s psychological needs and
motivation.

12. Distinguishing M.O. from Signature
• Signature and M.O. needs may be satisfied by the
same behavior. Important to remember the “two
most important axioms of criminal profiling”:
• Different offenders do similar things for different
reasons.
• Offender behaviors can be the result of multiple
motivations and/or external influences.

13. Factors that Shape M.O.
• Trade/Professional Experience
• Criminal experience and confidence
• Contact with the criminal justice system
• Media and pop culture
• Offender Mood/Mental state
• X-Factors (unknown/unplanned influences)

14. Factors that Shape Signature
• Personality/Psychopathology
• Evolution of Fantasy

15. The Organized-DisorganizedTypology
• Whether or not the crime scene is left ORGANIZED or
DISORGANIZED is said to provide information about the
offender’s criminal sophistication and personality.
• Organized crime scene reflects offender who commits crime
out of a need for power. Motivation associated with
PSYCHOPATHY.
• Disorganized crime scene reflects offender who commits crime
out of passion, compulsion, frustration, or anxiety. Motivation
associated with PSYCHOSIS.

16. • Offense planned
• Victim a targeted stranger
• Victim personalized
• Controlled conversation
• Crime scene reflects overall
control
• Demands submissive victim
• Restraints used
• Aggressive acts prior to death
• Body hidden
• Weapon/evidence absent
• victim or body transported
from scene
• Associated with psychopathy
The Organized Crime Scene

17. The Disorganized Crime Scene
• Spontaneous offense
• Victim or location known
• Depersonalizes victim
• Minimal conversation
• Crime scene random and
sloppy
• Sudden violence to victim
• Minimal use of restraints
• Sexual acts after death
• Body left in view
• Evidence/weapon often
present
• Body left at death scene
• Associated with Psychosis

18. Interview/Interrogation Strategies
• ORGANIZED
• Direct confrontation
• Respects competency
• One-person interview
• Don’t expect “free information”
• No use of “false evidence” (are too
sharp for this)
• Conduct when suspect has no time
to gather thoughts
• DISORGANIZED
• Relationship motivated
• Empathy
• Constant stream of
conversation
• Use positive personal
relationship
• Conduct at night

19. Distinction Between
Psychopathy and Psychosis
• PSYCHOPATHY
• Personality disorder made up of a particular constellation of
characteristics)
• Lack of attachment, defect in affect, absence of anxiety
• In touch with reality
• PSYCHOSIS
• Clinical mental illness – Schizophrenia
• May meet legal definition of insanity
• Out of touch with reality

20. The Psychological Autopsy
• The Psychological Autopsy is an attempt to reconstruct the
personality profile and cognitive features of deceased.This
postmortem psychological analysis is also called reconstructive
psychological evaluation and equivocal death analysis .
Psychological autopsies are important to:
• Assist certifying officials to clarify deaths that are ambiguous, uncertain, or equivocal as
to the manner of death
• Aid in investigation to determine insurance payments and national security issues.
• To make a reasonable determination of what may have been in the mind of the
deceased person leading up to and at the time of death—particularly if the death
appears to be a suicide
 Psychological autopsies differ from criminal profiling in two important
ways: (1) the profile is constructed on a dead person, and (2) the
identity of the person is already known.

21. Geographical Profiling and Mapping
• Geographical profiling refers to the analysis of geographical locations associated with the spatial
movements of a single serial offender,
• Geographical mapping is concerned with analyzing the spatial patterns of crimes committed by
numerous offenders over a period of time. Geographical mapping focuses on identifying the “hot
spots” of certain types of crime.

22. Jack the Ripper
• London’s Criminal Investigation Division
• Dr.Thomas Bond.
• “all five murders were no doubt committed by the same hand. In
the first four the throats appear to have been cut from left to right,
in the last case owing to the extensive mutilation it is impossible to
say in what direction the fatal cut was made. All the circumstances
surrounding the murders lead me to form the opinion that the
women must have been lying down when murdered”

23. • In each case the mutilation was implicated by a person who had no
scientific nor anatomical knowledge. In my opinion he does not
even possess the technical knowledge of a butcher or horse
slaughterer or any person accustomed to cutting up dead animals.
• A man subject to periodical attacks of Homicidal and Erotic mania.
The murderer in external appearance is quite likely to be a quiet
inoffensive looking man, probably middle-aged and neatly and
respectably dressed. He would be solitary and eccentric in his
habits, also he is most likely to be a man without regular
occupation, but with a small income or pension

24. Dr Bonds Report
• attempts to evaluate the relationship between each of the
murders
• closely parallel those found in many criminal profiles today
• whether they were indeed perpetrated by the same individual

26. The 3 Main Goals of Profiling
• 1.To provide a social and psychological assessment of the
offender.
• 2.To provide interview suggestions and strategies.
• 3. Narrow down an investigation to those suspects who possess
certain behavioral and/or personality features revealed by the
way a crime was committed.
Profilers do not solve crimes.

27. Applications of Criminal Profiling
• • A guide for how to potentially identify suspect(s) to the crime
under investigation.
• • A guide for how to prioritize/focus investigative lines of inquiry
on existing suspects.
• • A guide for patrol policing operations to potentially reduce the
commission of further offenses.
• • A guide for possible surveillance operations.
• • A guide for search and seizure operations

28. What do Criminal Profiles usually contain?
• • Likely demographics, such as age and gender.
• • Legal history, including any antecedence (i.e., history of prior
criminal offenses/ convictions).
• •Vocational background (i.e., the work the offender is likely to
be engaged in, if any).
• • Family characteristics (i.e., the likely background of the
offender’s family).
• • Habits and social interests (sports, hobbies, or other interests
that the offender may have).
• • Mode of transport (type of vehicle, if any, the offender has).
• •Various personality characteristics (the offender’s demeanour,
appearance, et

29. What to look for
•Signature
•Signature - something done to fulfill or satisfy the
offenders emotional state
•Not the same as Modus Operandi
•Modus Operandi - what is needed to complete the
crime
•MO- Method of Operation – (derived from Latin)

30. What to look for
•State of the crime scene
•Gives clues about the type of offender
•Age
•Race
•Motive

31. Approaches to Offender Profiling
•FBI ‘s Approach
•Diagnostic Evaluation/Clinical Approach
•Investigative Psychology/Environmental
Psychology
•Geographical Profiling
•Behavioural Evidence Analysis

32. Clinical Approach
•Adopted by psychiatrists and clinical
psychologists
•Looks at offenders from a mental illness point of
view.
•Used in the NewYork Mad Bomber Case 1956,
Jack the ripper case.
•Based on the experience of the clinical
practitioner.

33. FBI APPROACH
•Known as criminal Investigative Analysis (CIA
approach)
•Crime SceneAnalysis (CSA) Approach
•Both Behavioural and investigative perspective
•Considers the nature of crime scenes
•Nature of attack
•Evidence
•Information related to the victim
•Classifying offender