TV shows and movies like ‘Criminal Minds’ or ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ revolve around the idea of criminal profiling. They depict profiling as a fairly accurate method of catching criminals. However, the reality may not be as straightforward as seen in these movies! How accurate are psychological offender profiles in real life? Can we really catch a criminal based on these descriptions? Let’s find out in this article.
This article will cover:
· What is criminal profiling?
· Brief history and current approaches: offender dichotomy & CRIME
· Does it really work?
What is criminal profiling?
Criminal profiling (CP), also called psychological or offender profiling, is the inferring of offender characteristics based on the characteristics of the crime and their victims [2, 10]. A psychological profile may include psychological information such as personality traits, behavioural patterns, psychopathology or likely motivation as well as demographics such as age, race, gender or geographic location [11]. The offender’s supposed place of residence or work is referred to as geographical profiling [4]. Moreover, behavioural and crime scene characteristics can also be used to link different crimes together, as being committed by the same person [2]. This is based on the idea that offenders tend to display some consistency from one crime to another.
Profiling is usually performed by behavioural scientists, forensic scientists or criminal investigators [10]. The goals of CP could be split into two categories:
- Investigative goals include narrowing down the suspect pool, linking potentially connected crimes together based on behavioural patterns, assessing the possibility of escalation of criminal behaviour.
- Forensic goals include gaining insight into the motives of the offender, understanding what type of person may commit what type of crime, and for what reason [10, 11].
Brief history and current approaches
Before: Offender dichotomy
Criminal profiling has a long history. As early as the 1880s, two physicians in the UK analysed crime scene clues to predict the personality of Jack the Ripper [11]. In 1974, the FBI formed their Behavioural Science Unit to investigate serial murder and rape cases. Most notably, agents John Douglas and Robert Ressler interviewed 36 serial murderers to develop theories about different categories of offenders. This led them to the organised vs disorganised offender dichotomy, which you can see in the table below. Nowadays, it is considered to be more of a continuum with the possibility to display both organised and disorganised characteristics [10]. The focus is on the offender’s motivation, method and manner, and post-offence behaviour. This is currently known as criminal investigative analysis (CIA) and is commonly used by the FBI today[10].
Today: investigative psychological approach & CRIME
Criminal profiling has been highly criticised for being unscientific and based on the experience of individual investigators. This led the psychologist David Canter to develop the investigative psychology approach [11]. The goal is the same, to predict the characteristics of the offender. However, these predictions must be based on empirical, peer-reviewed research, which is by nature more reliable than predictions based on individuals’ intuitions! Investigative psychologists are not focused on the ‘why’. Instead, they analyse known behaviours of the offenders during the crime and group the types of behaviours together by the use of statistical methods [10]. Moreover, Canter argues that all offenders display signs of being organised. What distinguishes them is actually the level and type of disorganised behaviour.
Diagnostic evaluations are also related to criminal profiling but they are not a specific profiling method or approach [5]. These are the contributions of mental health experts who provide clinical evaluations of the offender, in the case that they suffer from a mental disorder.
Because of the variety of approaches, Petherick and Brooks [5] propose an integrative approach which they called CRIME. This encompasses the crime scene evaluations, research available on similar offending behaviour, investigative or clinical opinion, methods of investigation and a critical evaluation of the profile itself.
Does criminal profiling really work?
The issue with determining the validity of criminal profiling is the lack of extensive empirical research [7] as well as the weak scientific basis of the approach itself. Scholars appear to be split in their opinions regarding the validity and use of criminal profiling.
One of the earliest evaluations of the validity of criminal profiling was conducted in 1990 by Pinizotto and Finkel [6]. They wanted to investigate if professional profiles are better at predicting offender characteristics than non-profilers, and whether they use different methods. Professional profilers appeared to be more accurate for sex crimes, but no difference was found for murder cases. Moreover, their methods were not qualitatively different. This suggests that CP might not be consistently accurate. Furthermore, Kocsis [3] argues that there is evidence supporting the notion that expert profilers are better at accurately predicting offender characteristics than non-profilers.
On the other hand, Snook and colleagues [8, 9] criticised the conclusions drawn by Kocsis. They argue that there is no valid empirical evidence suggesting that criminal profiling really works. This argument is based on two meta-analyses they conducted. These showed that profilers or experienced investigators are not more successful at predicting offenders’ cognitive processes, physical attributes, offence behaviour or social habits compared to non-profilers. They also argue that the idea that criminal profiling works may be based on anecdotal evidence. Therefore, they believe that criminal profiling should not be used as an investigative tool as it lacks scientific support. These conclusions are also supported by Chifflet [1].
In conclusion,
The concept of criminal profiling has a long history. However, in contrast to what is depicted in the media, there is a significant lack of empirical data which would suggest that criminal profiling is consistently accurate and valid. Essentially, it should not be used as a primary investigative method.
Extra resources:
1. Book ‘Mindhunter: Inside the FBI Elite Serial Killer Unit’ – Special Agent John Douglas talks about the beginnings of criminal profiling
(non-fiction)
2. Netflix show ‘Mindhunter’ – based on the aforementioned book
References
1. Chifflet, P. (2015). Questioning the validity of criminal profiling: An evidence-based approach. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 48(2), 238-255. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0004865814530732
2. Granhag, P. A. (Ed.). (2017). Forensic psychology in context: Nordic and international approaches. Taylor & Francis.
3. Kocsis, R. N., Middledorp, J., & Karpin, A. (2008). Taking stock of accuracy in criminal profiling: The theoretical quandary for investigative psychology. Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, 8(3), 244-261. https://doi.org/10.1080/15228930802282006
4. Nedelcu, C. (2019). CRIMINAL PROFILING IN CRIME INVESTIGATION. Challenges of the Knowledge Society, , 156-162.
5. Petherick, W., & Brooks, N. (2020). Reframing criminal profiling: a guide for integrated practice. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2020.1837030
6. Pinizzotto, A. J., & Finkel, N. J. (1990). Criminal personality profiling. Law and Human Behavior, 14(3), 215-233. doi: 10.1007/BF01352750
7. Ribeiro, R. A. B., & de Matos Soeiro, C. B. B. (2021). Analysing criminal profiling validity: Underlying problems and future directions. International journal of law and psychiatry, 74, 101670. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlp.2020.101670
8. Snook, B., Cullen, R. M., Bennell, C., Taylor, P. J., & Gendreau, P. (2008). The criminal profiling illusion: What's behind the smoke and mirrors?. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 35(10), 1257-1276.
9. Snook, B., Eastwood, J., Gendreau, P., Goggin, C., & Cullen, R. M. (2007). Taking stock of criminal profiling: A narrative review and meta-analysis. Criminal justice and behavior, 34(4), 437-453.
10. Turvey, B. E. (Ed.). (2011). Criminal profiling: An introduction to behavioral evidence analysis. Academic press. https://doi-org.eur.idm.oclc.org/10.1002/9781118625392.wbecp082
11. Winerman, L. (2004). Criminal profiling: The reality behind the myth. Monitor on Psychology, 35(7), 66-69.