Criminal Profiling

What is Criminal Profiling?

Criminal profiling consists of analyzing a crime scene and using the information to determine the identity of the perpetrator. While this doesn't directly give you the perpetrator's name, it is very helpful in narrowing down suspects. For example, a profile based on a crime scene provides information that may include the perpetrator's personality, sex, age, ethnic background, and possible physical features such as disfigurements or height and weight. This information can then be used to identify possible suspects, depending on who fits the profile. Personality is one of the most important parts of a criminal profile. A Forensic Science website puts it precisely: "Behavior reflects personality. And that is what profiling is all about" (ForPsych, 1997).

How Does Criminal Profiling Work?

Personality profiles of criminals are based on the way in which a crime is committed, also known as the 'method of operations' or m.o. The m.o. includes the identity of the victim(s), what the victims (in the case of a serial offender) have in common, the weapon(s) used, the degree of hostility, the existence (or lack) of any torture and/or sexual molestation, and so on. Analyzing these aspects of the crime scene, an investigator (usually a trained forensic psychologist) can determine the motives of the perpetrator, which leads to a description of the perpetrator's personality, or the personality profile.

Why Does Criminal Profiling Work?

It may seem so far that criminal profiling depends on a lot of speculation on the part of the forensic psychologist. While some speculation is required, personality profiling is actually the result of many years of research. Forensic psychologists draw on older personality research and writings from psychologists such as Freud, Maslow, Rogers, McAdams, and others, as well as more recent, more specific research done by the FBI in general, and John Douglas in particular (ForPsych, 1997). Douglas is a member of the FBI's Investigative Support Unit, and he and his team have spent years interviewing convicted perpetrators and learning about their motives and desires. While you could say that convicted felons don't have much credibility, remember that most of these criminals are in jail for life, and take note that many criminals, especially serial murderers and rapists, tend to be very proud of their 'accomplishments'.

Some Methods

Criminal profiling exists in large part due to the work of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, a department dedicated to "developing new and innovative investigative approaches and techniques to the solution of crime by studying the offender, and his/her behavior and motivation". See the FBI's website for more information on their programs.

Below are the descriptions of two procedures for creating a criminal profile. The first procedure is a description of the FBI's method for creating a profile. The second, more recent form of profiling, Behavioral Evidence Analysis, was created by Brent Turvey, a forensic scientist and private criminal profiler in the early 1990s. Both descriptions, unless directly quoted, are summarized from Wayne Petherick's website on crimelibrary.com. Go to http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminology/criminalprofiling2/5.htm for more detailed information on Behavioral Evidence Analysis, and for Mr. Petherick's complete description of the FBI's Crime Scene Analysis go to http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminology/criminalprofiling2/3.htm.

The FBI's Crime Scene Analysis

The FBI's Crime Scene Analysis consists of six steps, which are summarized in the section that follows. For more detailed information, see Criminal Profiling by Wayne Petherick, or go directly to the FBI's official webpage regarding their Behavioral Science Unit, an investigative department that constantly researches and improves current methods of crime scene analysis.

1. Profiling Inputs: this is basically a collection of all evidence, including anything found on the scene (i.e. fibers, paint chips, etc.) and anything derived from the crime scene (for example, photographs, investigator notes, measurements, etc.).
   
   
2. Decision Process Models: in this second step, evidence is arranged to locate any types of patterns, such as whether or not the crime is part of a series of crimes, what the victims have in common, etc.
   
   
3. Crime Assessment: now that the evidence has been organized, the crime scene is reconstructed. Investigators use patterns to determine what happened in what order, and what role each victim, weapon, etc. had in the crime.
   
   
4. Criminal Profile: the combined first three steps are used to create a criminal profile incorporating the motives, physical qualities, and personality of the perpetrator. Also, the investigators use this information to decide on the best way to interview the suspects based on their personality.
   
   
5. The Investigation: the profile is given to investigators on the case and to organizations that may have data leading to the identification of a suspect. The profile may be reassessed if no leads are found or if new information is learned.
   
   
6. The Apprehension: unfortunately, this stage only occurs in about 50% of cases. When a suspect is identified, he/she is interviewed, investigated, compared to the profile, etc. If the investigators have reason to believe that the suspect is the perpetrator, a warrant is obtained for the arrest of the individual, usually followed by a trial with expert witnesses including the forensic psychologist and other forensic experts, including those involved in the crime scence analysis.
   
   

Behavioral Evidence Analysis

Brent Turvey created Behavioral Evidence Analysis (BEA) in response to his analysis of "things such as the fact that offenders will lie about their actions, and that sometimes the most objective record of what happened in a criminal event is a reconstruction of offender behaviour" (Petherick, 1999). Basically, both criminals and prosecuters reconstruct the crime, and the end result has a lot of discrepencies. Who is to say which reconstruction is correct? This is where BEA comes in.

Turvey's BEA consists of analyzing the crime in four distinct steps: Equivocal Forensic Analysis, Victimology, Crime Scene Characteristics, and Offender Characteristics. Note that this method is used for a known crime when the identity of the offender is 1) known and 2) unknown.

The first step, Equivocal Forensic Analysis, calls for analyzation of the physical evidence, including but not limited to interviews, evidence logs, investigator and autopsy reports, and photographs and videos of the crime scene, autopsy, and living victim(s). That is the forensic analysis part; this step of BEA is called Equivocal Forensic Analysis because it is important for investigators to take into consideration that the physical evidence can be interpreted in more than one way.

The second step, Victimology, requires the investigator to create a profile of the victim, which in turn can give clues as to the identity of the criminal. The identity of the victim, including their gender, ethnicity, and so on (particularly if several victims have these same characteristics), can help investigators determine that the criminal is targeting a certain type of individual, and from this, can deduce motive. Secondly, the physical aspects of the victim are important as well; is the victim is heavy, and was dragged for a long distance, it can be surmised that the criminal is strong and may have a muscular appearance (Petherick, 1999).

The third step, Crime Scene Characteristics, "involves the determination of a number of factors relevant to the location of the crime scene, where this crime scene is placed relative to other related crime scenes, and how the offender approached the victim/s" (Petherick, 1999). So the location of the crime scene in relation to the rest of the world, the location of the majority of the offense occurred (the "primary crime scene"), as well as the position of the body, etc., are used to figure out the criminal's motives, or what it meant to him or her.

The final step, Offender Characteristics, is the result of analyzing the first three steps, and a rough 'character sketch' is created by combining the knowledge gleaned from analyzing the different parts of the crime scene. This last step is basically the criminal profile.