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O

FFENDER

P

ROFILING

Forensic and Police Psychology

2010

O

FFENDER

P

ROFILING

offender profiling

criminal profiling

criminal personality profiling

crime scene profiling

behavioural profiling

psychological profiling

criminal investigative analysis,

(2)

O

FFENDER

P

ROFILING

Alison, et al. (2001): “

Offender Profiling is commonly associated with

inferring characteristics of an offender from the action at a crime scene

”.

Dougles and Burgess (1986) define the process as “

an investigative technique

by which to identify the major personality and behaviour characteristics of

the offender based upon an analysis of the crime(s) he or she committed

”.

Copson

(1995)

defines

offender

profiling

as:

Any

prediction,

recommendations and observations based on the inference of offender

characteristics from behaviour exhibited in a crime or a series of crimes, and

offered to the investigators as the product of statistical or clinical expertise

”.

O

FFENDER

P

ROFILING

Hallas: “

Offender profiling is different form ‘clues’ left at the scene (such as

blood, hair, semen, saliva, etc.) in that it provides the police with

less visible

clues at the crime scene

(e.g., choice of victim, location, type of assault,

anything said or not said to the victim)”.

(3)

O

FFENDER

P

ROFILING

child abuse, abduction

serious crimes of a serial nature including burglary,

rape, arson, and murder.

Profiling appears to be most useful in cases that suggest some

psychological disorder

in the offender, especially in attempting to

‘profile’ personality from crime-specific behaviour, or in a series of

unsolved crimes that suggest

patterned or distinct

offence-relevant behaviours

(Horgan, 2002).

Holmes (1989) suggests that profiling is most useful when the crime

scene reflects

psychopathology

(e.g., sadistic assault) and 90 % of

profiling attempts involve murder of rape.

O

BJECTIVES OF THE

O

FFENDER

P

ROFILING

(Horgan, 2002):

1.

The development of a

description of an unknown offender

,

based on an interpretation of crime scene elements of the

unsolved offence (this is perhaps the broadest, and most common

purpose of profiling).

1.

Establishing the

probability of a future offence

from the same

offender based on the crime scene analysis.

1.

The

linking of a series of unsolved crimes

that appear to

share distinct features (e.g., often through linking ‘signature

aspects’ – essentially personalized offender specific behaviours

that reflect individual interpersonal behaviour and/or fantasy).

1.

The development of an

interrogation strategy

to assist police

in ‘asking the right questions’. Again, this is based on a

psychological portrait inferred from an analysis of the crime

scene and/or statistical data from offenders thought similar to the

unknown subject.

(4)

M

YTHS AND

F

ACTS

MYTH: Psychologists regularly visit the crime scenes.

FACTS: For the most part, the profiler is consulted

in the late stages of

investigation

, and examines the crime scene from a

distance via

materials

provided by the police, and often, but not exclusively,

when police leads have been exhausted (Horgan, 2002).

Information available to a profiler

:

case documents on the crime scene

victim-related information

forensic information, including a pathologist’s report, preliminary police

reports, and a variety and range of photographs

Other profiler’s sources

:

personal experience

or expertise relating to knowledge of both the

type of

crime

in question as well as the type of criminal suggested from the

analysis of crime

experience form

clinical case studies, statistical models of offending etc.

M

YTHS AND

F

ACTS

MYTH: Profiler can identify exact person whom the police should arrest.

FACTS: The profile is certainly

not predicated on any specific ‘absolutes’

(Ainsworth, 2000; In. Horgan, 2002).

PROFILE

The profile is basically a summary document, often not more than 6-10 pages, which

typically contains (Horgan, 2002):

predictions of offender’s

sex

, approximate

age

,

race

and

other general

characteristics

suggestions related to whether or not the offender

is likely to offend again

suggestions related to whether or not the offender

may be forensically aware

(sexual offences) details of the

degree of sexual maturity

of the offender or the

role of specific fantasy themes

in the offending behaviour

information related to the offender’s

likely responses

to police questioning and

suggestions about the

interrogative strategy

to the police

(5)

E

ARLY

E

XAMPLES OF

P

ROFILING

1888 – ‘Jack the Ripper’ (London)

Jack the Ripper – his crimes are also known as the ‘Whitechapel Murders’ as

they took place around the Whitechapel area of London.

The police surgeon Dr. Phillips drew some conclusions about the killer’s

personality by examining the wounds of the victims. He concluded that the

killer must have had some medical training because some of the victim’s

organs had been removed with a skill that only a medical professional would

have. (Turvey, 1999, In. Hallas)

In November 1888 Dr. Thomas Bond offered the following opinion (Cited in

Rumbelow, 1987, p. 140-141; In. Canter, 2004):

E

ARLY

E

XAMPLES OF

P

ROFILING

1956 – ‘Mad Bomber’ (New York)

The Mad Bomber had planted his first bomb at the Consolidated Edison

building on West 64th Street on November 16th, 1940.

The Mad Bomber (or F.P. as he signed his mysterious, paranoid letters)

had been planting bombs in New York City for sixteen years (till 1956).

He detonated over 30 explosive devices in locations all over the city.

The Mad Bomber's devices were getting more powerful with every

explosion. He sent arrogant letters to the department and local media.

from: Madden, M. A. (no date). George Metesky: New York’s Mad Bomber. Downloaded 12thof November 2010 from:

(6)

E

ARLY

E

XAMPLES OF

P

ROFILING

1956 – ‘Mad Bomber’ (New York)

1956: Dr. James Brussel, criminal psychiatrist, came up with the following conclusions: The bomber wasmale. With a few exceptions, historically bombers have always been male.

The bomber had agrudge against Con Edisonand was likely aformer employee. He believed himself to have been permanently injured by the company and was seeking revenge. This conclusion was obvious from the letters.

The bomber was a textbookparanoid. The bomber believed that Con Edison and the public at large conspired against him.

The bomber was middle-aged — probablyaround 50. Paranoia generally peaks around age 35 and the bomber had been active for 16 years.

The bomber wasneat,meticulous andskilled at his work. Everything from the carefully constructed bombs, to the neat lettering, to the careful planning of the bombs indicated his neatness. Also, paranoids tend to set high standards for themselves so as not open themselves to unwanted criticism.

The bomber was overlysensitive to criticism. This is a classic symptom of paranoia.

The bomber wasforeign or spent the majority of his time with foreign people. The bomber wrote in stilted, formal language bereft of any contemporary slang. He utilized phrases like "dastardly deeds" that sounded as if out of Victorian fiction. He referred to Con Edison as "the Con Edison" when New Yorkers had referred to the utility giant without the article "the" for years.

The bomber had at least ahigh school educationbut probably no college. The stilted language of the letters and skilled construction of the bombs spoke of self-education. The excellent handwriting indicated at least some formal schooling.

The bomber was aSlavand probablyRoman Catholic. Culturally speaking, Eastern and Central Europeans most often employ bombs as weapons. Most Slavs are Catholic.

The bomberlived in Connecticut, not New York. Some of the letters had been mailed from Westchester Country (a location in between Connecticut and New York) and Connecticut was home to large communities of Eastern and Central Europeans.

The bomber suffered from an Oedipal Complex. Like most Oedipal sufferers he was likelyunmarriedand lived with a single female relative or relatives that were not his mother. He probablylost his mother young. Dr. Brussel made these conclusions based on the phallic construction of the bombs; the strange (and breast-like) W's in the bomber's otherwise perfect handwriting and the strange slashing and penetration of the movie theatres seats.

E

ARLY

E

XAMPLES OF

P

ROFILING

1956 – ‘Mad Bomber’ (New York)

All the major New York papers includingThe New York Timespublished summaries of Dr. Brussel's profile.

Dr. Brussel predicted that if, in fact, anything was wrong with the profile the bomber wouldn't be able to resist telling the police and media about the error. Even if the profile was on target, the bomber might be goaded into revealing details that could lead the police to him.

"One more thing," said Dr. Brussel with his eyes dramatically closed, "When you catch him — and I have no doubt you will — he'll be wearing a double-breasted suit." "And it will be buttoned.“

Con Edison assigned several of its administrative staff members to go through its vast

"troublesome" employee files searchingfor anyone who fit the profile.

The neighbours didn't know what to make of George Metesky. The dapper, Slavic man who lived at Number 17 Fourth Street in Waterbury,Connecticutwith his two unmarried sisters didn't appear to work for a living. Although he was always polite, he wasdistant and nobody in the neighbourhood knew anything about him.

Around the same time as the newspapers began to publicize the Dr. Brussel's profile of the mad bomber, the neighbours noticeda change in Metesky. He seemed friendlier — even talkative at times. He helped a local boy fix his model airplane, and the neighbourhood children were no longer afraid of him. People in the neighbourhood remarked to one another that they might have misjudged the eccentric Metesky.

A few nights later, the neighbours were shocked when the police came andarrested Metesky. Dressed in his bathrobe, he pleasantly and politely confessed to being the bomber. VIDEO The police requested that Metesky change clothes before they arrested him. He obliged, and when they took him away he was wearing adouble-breasted suit — buttoned.

George Metesky, whofit Brussel's profile in every detail, was found insane and committed to the Matteawan asylum for the criminally insane. As is the case with most acute paranoids, he was unresponsive to treatment — believing the psychiatrists were part of the conspiracy against him. He proved to be a model patient and spent much of his time trying to legally win his release.

from: Madden, M. A. (no date). George Metesky: New York’s Mad Bomber. Downloaded 12thof November 2010 from:

(7)

D

EDUCTIVE

R

EASONING

Deductive reasoning islogicalreasoning. It tends to be more definite than inductive reasoning (Hallas).

“Deduction is a form of implicit reasoning in which whatever experience or logic the reasoner can draw upon will be used to derive inferences about the culprit from aspects of the crime” (Canter, 2000).

DEDUCTIVE CRIMINAL PROFILING

If the first statement is true, then the conclusion is also true

Example (Turvey, 1999): The situation is that the offender disposed of a victim’s body in a remote area and tyre tracks were found at the scene. The profiler could say ‘if the tyre track belong to the offender, then the offender has access to a vehicle and can drive’ (Hallas).

Example (Canter, 2000):

The offender had short finger nails on his right hand and long nails on his left hand.

This is a characteristic of people who are serious guitar players.

The offender was somebody who played the guitar.

In fact in the case of question, the offender who was eventually identified had no contact with guitars and had this peculiar pattern of nail lengthbecause of his job in repairing old tyres.

Without clearempirical evidenceabout the prevalence of this particular pattern of nail length it is difficult to know whether the claim that it is unique to guitar players is valid.

I

NDUCTIVE

R

EASONING

The collection ofempirical evidencein order to support the inferences that may be made about the relationship between the crimes and the offender is the cornerstone of the inductive method of science (Canter, 2000).

Information from the environment and many other sources is weighed up, and the conclusion are drawn (Hallas).

INDUCTIVE CRIMINAL PROFILING

ICP uses statistics, especially correlation, in order to see whether there are shared characteristics between crimes.

Today the statistical procedures vary enormously from Linear Discriminant Function Analysis and Logistic Regression through Multidimensional Scaling and Cluster Analysesto the more statistically sophisticatedBasysian Belief Networking(Horgan, 2002).

(8)

A

PPROACHES TO

O

FFENDER

P

ROFILING

1.

Clinical Psychological Approach

2.

Criminal Investigative – FBI Approach

3.

Scientific Statistical – British Approach

4.

Geographical Approach

T

HE

C

LINICAL

P

SYCHOLOGICAL

A

PPROACH

Individuals using theclinical practitioner approachrely on theirpractical experience, knowledge, and to varying degrees intuition to draw inferences from crime scene information (Alison, et al., 2010).

The clinical psychological profiling is performed by clinical psychologists or psychiatrists who rely more heavily on clinical data and models of offending, although as Silke (2001) asserts, the clinician will prefer to regard each case as unique thereby deserving a detailed case-specific analysis and classification (Horgan, 2002).

Rather than relying on investigative experience (FBI approach), the clinician relies on drawing inferences fromexpertiseorexperience with similar crimesand offenders, often in forensic and/or mental health settings (Horgan, 2002).

The clinical profiling is not a uniformly discrete process. For example,clinical profilers could easily arrive at different profiles from the same profile inputs. This can reflect differences in the professional backgrounds and training of the clinicians as well as differences in their theoretical orientation within the discipline of psychology (Horgan, 2002).

Subjective / professional judgement!

Some clinical profiles highlight issues to do with the significance of the murders to the offenders, “internal conflicts and fantasy life” (Canter, 1989, p. 12), all of which Canter argues “are hidden from view and therefore not readily open to conventional police investigation” (Horgan, 2002).

(9)

T

HE

FBI A

PPROACH

The American approach is called ‘

top-down

’ because it builds a classification

system using information that is already known (i.e., interviews with known

criminals) together with a behavioural analysis of crime scenes and

information from victims and witnesses (Hallas).

In

1979,

FBI

investigators

interviewed

serial

killers

and

sex

murderers

. They interviewed 36 sexual murderers including Charles

Manson and Ted Bundy. They found that out of these 36 subjects:

24 were ‘

organised’

12 were ‘

disorganised’

In general, the FBI

dichotomised the crime scenes

of this group of

offenders into two broad categories – organised and disorganised. Both the

organised

and

disorganised

crimes

were

then

correlated

with

characteristics of the offender sample

(Horgan, 2002).

T

HE

FBI A

PPROACH

ORGANISED CRIME SCENES

reflected an overalllevel of control and planning, with offender bringing their

own weapons with them and generally comingprepared. The offenders carefully

planned their offence, often using restraints in subduing the victims.

reflected an overall level of organisation, the organised offender would take

care totransportthe victim to a predetermined location both in the execution of

the offence or sometimes post-mortem to hide the location of the body.

The victim of the organised offender would be ‘personalised’, in that the victim

may have been a stranger, they were seen to represent a vital element of the offender’s fantasy (Ressler et al. 1988, In. Horgan, 2002).

OFFENDER WITH ORGANISED CRIME SCENE BEHAVIOUR

anaverage or above average intelligencelevel

socially and sexually competent

oftenliving with a partner

weremobile(with a car)

often had a degree of negative stress precipitating the crime itself (e.g.

through personal turmoil at home, at work, etc.)

follow the reported progressof the criminal investigation often change jobs or leave town as a result

(10)

T

HE

FBI A

PPROACH

DISORGANISED CRIME SCENES

The crimes often appeared the result

of unplanned, spontaneous

‘blity’-style attacks, often subsequently resulting in greater levels of

exhibited

violence

reflecting an overall

lack of planning and forethought

.

The overall crime scenes were ‘

chaotic

, with little effort made to conceal

either the victim, or materials used in the offence (e.g. weapons).

OFFENDER WITH DISORGANISED CRIME SCENE BEHAVIOUR

below average intelligence

level

socially, sexually and occupationally unskilled

were reported to be

quite anxious

during the commission of the crime

lived

alone

would

not bother to ‘follow’ the news reports

or make subsequent

efforts to purposely avoid detection (Ressler, 1988; In. Horgan, 2002).

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

While the

organised

offender’s behaviour and personality appear to reflect

psychopathic

behaviour, the

disorganised

offenders were more typically

representative of the presence of some

psychotic

disorder (Turvey, 1999).

T

HE

FBI A

PPROACH

CRITISICM (e.g. Canter, Turvey, Alison)

lack of scientific methodological rigor and sound theoretical underpinning

overgeneralisation and oversimplification

the oversimplification of complex situational behaviours into dichotomous

categories, a typical strategy used within this approach, has been

empirically refuted

MIXED CATEGORY

offenders who display elements of both ‘organisation’ and ‘disorganisation’

crime scenes behaviour, or the crime scene when exists the likelihood of

the presence of more than one offender

(11)

T

HE

FBI A

PPROACH

NATIONAL CENTRE FOR THE ANALYSIS OF VIOLENT CRIME (NCAVC)

Services

provided by the behavioural analysis units include:

crime analysis; profiles of unknown offenders; linkage analysis; investigative

suggestions;

threat assessment; interview strategies; media strategies;

search warrant affidavit assistance; prosecution and trial strategies;

expert testimony; critical incident analysis; and

geographic profiling

NCAVC Research Program

how offenders commit their crimes,

how they attempt to avoid detection,

and how they are identified, apprehended, and convicted.

Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP)

the largest investigative repository of major violent crime cases in the United

States.

web-based data information centre designed to collect and analyze information

about homicides, sexual assaults, missing persons, and other violent crimes

involving unidentified human remains.

the database compares information in an attempt to identify similar cases and

help move investigations forward.

T

HE

B

RITISH

S

TATISTICAL

A

PPROACH

The British approach is called ‘

bottom-up

’ because it involves working

with detailed information gathered from the scene of the crime and

from information about the crime. A picture of the criminal is then

suggested (Hallas).

Differences between the British and American approaches

Boon and Davies (1992) argue that

the British approach

is based on

‘bottom-up’ data processing (an analysis of existing evidence), the aim being to identify

associations between offences and offender characteristics.

The American

approach

is ‘top-down’ and uses subjective conclusions drawn from both

experience of crimes and interviews with criminals (Hallas).

(12)

T

HE

B

RITISH

S

TATISTICAL

A

PPROACH

The statistical approach is primarily based on the

multivariate

analysis

of behavioural and other information found at the crime

scene to infer an offender’s characteristics and psychological processes

(Alison et al., 2010).

Prof.

David Cater

is one of the leading advocates of the development

of ‘investigative psychology’ in the UK. He encourages an empirical

approach to profiling based on the collation of

offence and offender

characteristics

and their

subjection

to

statistical modelling

in order

to support any inferences of profile characteristics (Horgan, 2002).

The technique primarily employed by Canter and his colleagues was

multidimensional scaling (MDS)

in which offences and/or their

features were represented as points in space. They use the principle of

‘smallest space’ (developed by of Louis Guttman). Thus the MDS

methods typically used are usually known as

‘smallest space

analysis’ (SSA)

(Horgan, 2002).

T

HE

B

RITISH

S

TATISTICAL

A

PPROACH

5 basic dimensions of offender behaviour

violent behaviour

sexual behaviour

impersonal behaviour

criminal behaviour

intimacy behaviour

The statistical profile in isolation (with no connection to the clinical approach)

will not be able to offer inferences about the perpetrator’s background or other

predisposing influences (Horgan, 2002).

(13)

T

HE

B

RITISH

S

TATISTICAL

A

PPROACH

A Hierarchy of criminal actions (by David Canter, 2000)

The major premise - there are some

psychologically important variations

between crimes

that relate to

differences in the people

who commit them.

Questions aboutparticular subsets of activities that occur in a crime, such as, whether a particular type of weapon (MODUS OPERANDI).

MODUS OPERANDI – the method of operation used by criminal -all the actions and behaviours that were needed to commit the crime

Some of the actions willoverlap with those of other offenders, for example whether the criminal carries out his or her crimes on impulse or plans them carefully.

There will be relatively few aspects of offending, if any, that are unique to one given offender (SIGNATURE). Even those may not be apparent in all the crimes that a person commits!

T

HE

B

RITISH

S

TATISTICAL

A

PPROACH

Problem with this model:

The linear ordering of this table is an

over-simplification.

Offenders are not necessarily specialists in one particular type of crime (Klen, 1984; In. Canter, 2000).

It may mean that, for example, it is more valid to consider the difference between an offender who came prepared to carry out his or her crime and one who just grabbed what was available, rather than focusing on differences, say, whether it was a robbery or burglary. In effect, this makes the

description of crimes multi-dimensional(Canter, 2000).

(14)

T

HE

B

RITISH

S

TATISTICAL

A

PPROACH

The radix model – beyond ‘types’ (by David Canter, 2000)

At the centre of the circle, are actionstypical of all the criminalsbeing considered.

As the action become more specific to particular styles of offending so they would be expected to be conceptually further from the ‘centre’ of general criminality and thus more differentiating between criminals.

This model has two facets to in:

1) the facet of specificity, moving

from the general, shared by all offences and therefore conceptually in the middle, to the specific at the periphery.

2) the thematic facet that distinguishes between the different qualities of the offences, conceptually radiating around the ‘core’ (e.g., the degree of planning, the forms of contact with the victim)

T

HE

B

RITISH

S

TATISTICAL

A

PPROACH

Research recommendation (by Davis Canter, 2000)

Researchers have therefore usually focused on one or other of the ‘levels’ of this hierarchy.

For example, there are many studies examining the differences between offenders and non-offenders. There are fewer comparing the differences between those convicted of one crime and those convicted of another,

and very few considering the differences between people who carry out similar crimes (e.g. rape) in different ways.

(15)

T

HE

G

EOGRAPHICAL

A

PPROACH

The basis for the geographical profiling is that

it may be possible to locate

the probable residential or employment base of a criminal

. This is based

on

an

analysis

of

apparent

patterns

in

the

criminal’s

offence

characteristics (Horgan, 2002).

The theoretical underpinnings of this approach essentially borrow from

mathematical and statistical models

, but are interpreted on an

individual basis through the filters of

environmental and cognitive

psychology

(Horgan, 2002).

The approach involves assumptions about the

spatial dimensions to

behaviour

routine behaviour patterns of victims,

the location of offence,

demographic attributes of the surrounding environment, etc.

T

HE

G

EOGRAPHICAL

A

PPROACH

Canter and Larkin (1993) in their work on

serial rapists

suggests that offenders

operate within distinctive ‘offence regions’.

Their analysis of 45 male serial rapists illustrated that some serial offenders (the

marauders’

) tend to hunt in areas with which they are familiar: 87 % of the

sample move outwards from their home base to conduct their attacks.

They also proposed the existence of ‘

commuters’

, thought to travel to a ‘target

location’ both to hunt for and victimise targets. The travelled distance tends to

correlate directly with the distances between offences.

(16)

R

EFERENCES

Alison, L. et al. (2001). Interpreting the Accuracy of Offender Profiles. UK: University of Liverpool.

Alison, L. et al. (2010). Pragmatic Solution to Offender Profiling and Behavioural Investigative Advice. The British Psychological Society. 15, 115-132.

Canter, D. (2000). Offender Profiling and Criminal Differentiation. UK: The British Psychological Society.

Canter, D. (2004). Offender Profiling and Investigative Psychology. Centre for Investigative Psychology. UK: The University of Liverpool.

Hallas, S. (no date). Offender Profiling. Psychology Factsheets. Downloaded 1stof Novemeber 2010

from:www.curriculum-press.co.uk.

Horgan, J. (2002). Understanding Criminal Behaviour: Beyond ‘Red Dragon’. Faculty of Science Public Lecture Series, Ireland: University College Cork.

Madden, M. A. (no date). George Metesky: New York’s Mad Bomber. Downloaded 12th of

November 2010 from:

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/terrorists/metesky/1.html.

Turvey, B. E. (2008). Criminal Profiling. An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis. Third Edition. Elsevier, UK: Adademic Press.

References

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