Introduction
Criminal profiling refers to the technique of observing and analyzing the behavioral patterns of a crime so as to assist the investigators come up with a descriptive template of the offender. The investigators aim to predict the offender’s age, gender, marital and employment status. They will then match the profile with a pool of potential suspects.
Criminal Profiling: Both a Science and Art
There have been arguments on whether criminal profiling is an art or science. This paper discusses why criminal profiling is both a science and an art.
Criminal profiling is a science that involves behavioral analysis. Psychologists and psychiatrists have contributed to criminal profiling by using the prevailing theories on personality, psychopathology and psychoanalysis. In the year 1956, David Brussels, a psychiatrist was able to construct a profile of the ‘mad bomber” that was accurate. He came up with the description of the criminal. The profile revealed he would be single, a foreigner, self-educated and paranoid. He would be living in Connecticut and posses a grudge against Con Edison Company. The first bomb had targeted the company’s headquarters. The profile was based on psychology theory.
The profile was accurate and it led to the arrest of Metesky in January, 1957(Winerman, 2004). After this incident, police have been consulting psychiatrists and psychologists for assistance in criminal profiling. The criminal profiling field has mostly developed within the FBI law enforcement body.
There has been a growth in the demand and use of criminal profiling. This has been accelerated by several factors. First of all there has been the fictional media glorification on the technique through the airing of several homicidal programs. One of the media programs that highlighted criminal profiling was the movie the Silence of the Lambs (Dowden , Bennell & Bloomfield, 2007).
Criminal profiling is conducted based on the crimes committed by serial offenders. The serial offenders are those criminals who commit a crime two times or more in different settings. The criminals may commit the crimes consistently or take breaks or stop completely after a while.
Experts have come up with several reasons why the criminal could have taken a break or stopped completely. It could have been due to busyness of family or the killer has found a way of escape in acting out his fantasies especially the fantasies of a sexual nature.
Research has been conducted on the validity of the use of the offender profiles.
There are skills that are generally accepted to be essential for a professional to come up with a good profile. The first one is an appreciation and understanding of the criminal mind. Secondly, the experience gained by investigating crimes over several years was an important consideration. The profiler should have the ability to logically and objectively analyze the criminal evidence. The profiler should have psychic intuitive ability. The fourth perquisite quality is what has brought the debate that criminal profiling is an art that depends on the emotions, senses and creativity. The belief that it is an art has been further influenced by the involvement of psychics by law enforcement officers in criminal profiling.
Criminal Profiling is a science that can be learned and trained professionals are better at it than the rest. Pinizzotto and Finkel conducted a research where a group of professional profilers and another group of non-profilers were both given a chance to come up with the profile of a serial arsonist and murderer. The results of the research revealed that the professional profilers wrote longer and more detailed profile reports (Pinizzotto & Finkel, 1990). Moreover the reports were more accurate than the reports of the non-profilers. The researchers had taken four former FBI profilers, six policemen with profiling experience, six police detectives, six clinical psychologists and six undergraduates with no profiling experience. They were given a questionnaire with 15 questions that requested the individual to state the biological features of the probable suspect, whether he had committed previous offenses or not and the relationship between the offender and the victim.
The research results also showed that among the trained profilers, there were those individuals who performed better than the others. This could be attributed to the different profiling skills among the participants. This shows that criminal profiling is an art that also depends on a person’s intellect. The belief that criminal profiling is learnt is also demonstrated by the beliefs held by the police. Research showed that the police officers placed a higher reliance on profiles that had been authored by a highly trained professional (Kocsis, 2003). They seemed to place less reliance where the author was a random individual. This was in spite of the fact that the two profiles had very little differences.
Furthermore, research has shown that science sophomores and psychologists have a stronger performance in criminal profiling than others showing that it is indeed a science. There are processes of criminal profiling process that are standard or project similar outcomes and can therefore be argued to have a scientific paradigm. Criminal profilers have established that serial killers went through several experiences when they were growing up. These could be child abuse or lack of good role models. There is also the issue of exposure to pornographic or violent crimes in their life. The individual will gravitate towards acting out the fantasies in his own life. The other scientific paradigm in criminal profiling is that through the crimes the criminal is telling a story about himself. The information on the crimes has been tested and proven to show the geographical boundary locations where the offender commits his crime, the relationship with the victim and previous offenses that he might have committed. The application of psychology theory has assisted in finding out where the criminal lives and what his profession may be.
Criminal profiling works on the belief that the serial killer is formed through a development process. Research has shown that this theory is true. Research was carried out on 36 serial offenders and it was found out that: 69% of the serial offenders had been psychologically abused while they were growing up while 74% percent said that they had a history of alcohol abuse in their families (Ressler, Burgess & Douglas, 1988, p 195).
Limitations on the Development of Criminal Profiling as a Science
Criminal profiling is a practice that relies heavily on the knowledge of psychology and law enforcement. However, as a science, the area is yet to set boundaries or definitions. The different experts in the different fields do not seem to agree on the methodology and terminology of criminal profiling.
Criminal profiling is an important practice that should be approached with caution. This is because if the police rely on the wrong profile, it will lengthen the time that the police will take in apprehending the killer. Innocent people will die. We cannot stop using criminal profiling. However the use of the method should be conducted with caution.
Clearly there needs to be more empirical research carried out and documented for the society to regard and validate criminal profiling. The development of criminal profiling as a science has been progressing slowly. There have been concerns raised by psychiatrists and psychologists on the validity of the findings (Torres, Boccaccini, & Miller, 2006). First of all there is no standard process in the practice of criminal profiling. Researchers have found inconsistencies in police profile reports in the way they classify a certain scene as organized and another one as disorganized.
In criminal profiling, the organized crimes are premeditated and carefully planned. When the law enforcement officers examine the crime scene area there is hardly any evidence found. These serial killers are usually mad and cold-hearted. They have few friends as they are highly unfriendly. Law enforcement officers are able to collect evidence such as fingerprints and blood in disorganized crime scenes. The crimes are usually not planned. These individuals usually commit the crime when they are drunk or high. They are also mentally challenged and in their youth.
Furthermore, the perquisite qualities of criminal profilers of psychic intuition and experience gained in criminal profiling may be difficult to measure empirically. There are other aspects of criminal profiling that cannot be measured easily. There will be distortions and irregularities in the measurement. This is due to the ambiguous nature of the information that is contained in the profiles. A good example is the statement” the offender is likely to be an older male.”
The examiners are left with the complex decision and process of determining what exactly is “older”. The task is further complicated by other statements in the profile such as the offender has had an extensive work or marital life. The profile statements may convey different meetings when interpreted separately and jointly.
There is a lot of discrepancy in the acceptance of criminal profiling in the courts of law. Criminal profiling has been both accepted and denied in the courts of law. Profilers have been allowed to give evidence in a court of law in several cases over history. There is an argument that if criminal profiling was given another name, it would be more accepted in the courts of law (Cooley & Turvey, 2002). Experts have realized the use of other names as such as signature and motivational analysis instead of criminal profiling raises the acceptable level of the profiler in a court of law. Researchers say that the reason for the reluctance of using criminal profiling evidence in court is the lack of reliable and concrete documentation on whether criminal profiling is an acceptable investigative technique. It has also been argued that the police use criminal profiling as one of the last methods. They prefer to initially rely on the scientific methods like testing for DNA.
The reliance of criminal profiling on psychoanalysis has also raised serious debates. Not all people who have witnessed violent crimes, had bad role models, watched pornography or suffered child abuse end up becoming serial killers or offenders. There may need to be an investigation to assess at which level of engagement with the mentioned experiences causes someone to become a serial killer (Muller, 2000)
Furthermore, profilers have no great interest in the development of empirical processes.
They believe on the superiority of their experience and intuition above any academic knowledge. The FBI believes that they are superior to other institutions or persons in criminal profiling and they are not comfortable sharing knowledge on how they do it. They feel it is a security concern if such information is revealed or known by the public. Researchers have raised concerns that it is dangerous not to have the techniques of criminal profiling open for investigation. They believe that if a doctor does not rely on intuition or experience alone, then the criminal profiler also should not. It is felt that without the examination of the process the criminal justice system may be missing something very important. The research conducted by the FBI on the 36 serial offenders has also raised questions. The subjects may want to impress the researcher or try to selectively remember what could have contributed to their serial killer development. This is the danger with retrospective self-report research.
Conclusion
There have been advancements in the field of criminal profiling in making it into a science. The experts in the different fields have been using statistical methods in psychology. For the success of creating a science out of criminal profiling there has to be unity between the different organization and the concerned parties. Right now there seems to be a lot of mistrust and contradictions between all the experts in the different fields. Developing an academic source of science literature would help even the police in different countries be able to conduct criminal profiling and arrest the serial killers. It will also assist scholars from different fields to contribute to the science in the profession. The knowledge in the area will be expanded. It will also enable experts measure the practice of criminal profiling easily.
References
Torres, A., Boccaccini, M. & Miller, H. (2006) Perceptions of the Validity and Utility of Criminal Profiling among Forensic Psychologists and Psychiatrists. Criminal Profiling, 37(1), 51–58.
Cooley, C. & Turvey, B. (2002). Reliability and validity: Admissibility standards relative to forensic experts illustrated by criminal profiling evidence, testimony, and judicial rulings. Web.
Dowden, C., Bennell C. & Bloomfield. S. (2007) Advances in Offender Profiling: A Systematic Review of the Profiling Literature Published Over the Past Three Decades. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 22, 44–56.
Muller, D. (2000). Criminal Profiling: Real Science Or Just Wishful Thinking? Homicide Studies, 4 (3), 234-264.
Kocsis, R. (2003). Criminal Psychological Profiling: Validities and Abilities. Web.
Pinizzotto, A. & Finkel. J.(1990). Criminal personality profiling: An outcome and process study. Law and Human Behavior, 14, 215–233.
Ressler, R., Burgess, A. & Douglas, E. (1988) Sexual homicide: Patterns and motives. Lexington, MA: Lexington.
Winerman, L. (2004) Criminal Profiling: the Reality behind the Myths. Monitor on Psychology, 35 ( 7). Web.