Evaluating Statements Made By Criminal Profiling Criminology Essay

Evaluating Statements Made By Criminal Profiling Criminology EssayThe purpose of this turn up is to critically evaluate the recital made by Hicks Sales in their written report on Criminal Profiling Developing an Effective tuition and Practice (2006) that Profilers get h disused of a substantial and bear on contribution to contain to sad investigationsIt is this authors opinion that the field of wrongdoer write, or criminal reputation profiling is, put quite simply, educated guesswork and is non an carry intelligence. However, in many criminal graphemes, typically those of a violent nature, it has proved useful to the authorities involved by providing a mental glimpse of, or an insight to, the wrongdoer, or criminal mind that committed the offence. prior to 1986, profiling was not in common usage by police forces in the UK and it was the first offender profile crapd in the UK by a professor of applied psychology at Surrey University, David ride horseback, in the case of the railway line Killer, John Duffy, that pass water to the Association of Chief patrol Officers (ACPO) setting up a special committee to discuss the results of the Duffy case. In that case, prof Canter composed a psychological profile of the killer that was accurate on 13 out of the 17 points he made. This was hailed as a find in the psychological understanding of criminal conduct and as a result of the special committee meeting a research hurl was established, led by Canter, to draw up a proper modeling for criminal profiling. (Murder Casebook, 1991, p2681) wrongdoer profiling should be understood to consist of a range of manners apply to develop advice for investigators, ground on the study of demeanor exhibited in the commission of curse(s) and the drawing of inferences about the offender(s).Association of Chief Police Officers policy on offender profiling from the University of Portsmouth Offender Profiling course of study handbook, p6In further accordance with the ACPO guidelines on offender profiling for England Wales, it whitethorn be considered useful so long as the profile is hardened with caution. This author suggests a forced criminal profile should not be used to lead an investigation, but whitethorn stay lines of enquiry relating to the investigation.As already mentioned, there take hold been many criminal cases resulting in convictions, in which offender profiling has proven useful as an investigative aid, but it should alike be noted that there atomic number 18 some cases where an attempt at psychological profiling has proved to a greater extent a hindrance to an investigation, either by diverting resources away from capturing the actual criminal or creating avenues of vapid research. For fount Richard Je closely as the US Olympic Park bombing peculiar in 1996, and in the UK, again in 1996, the case against Colin Stagg in the Rachel plate murder. two were suspected by law enforcement and afterward inured p oorly by the media, as a direct result of offender profiles that had been created. Both Je well and Stagg later successfully claimed monetary compensation from various media corporations that had cast aspersions on their involvement in the two cases cited. (http//medialibel.org/cases-conflicts/tv/jewell.html) and (http//www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/13/law)In the case of Colin Stagg, the use of deception and foolish pretences and a profile developed by Dr Paul Britton, at the time the head of the Trent Regional Forensic psychology Service, resulted in licence presented to the court world dismissed. Britton (1997, p537) himself has writtenthe notion of a psychological profile being admissible as establishment of individuation in any circumstances was redolent with consider adequate to(p) danger.Whilst the profile created by Britton whitethorn prolong accurately portrayed the type of person who could have committed this type of iniquity, it could not be used as evidence in a court of law that this is the person who committed the abuse.Ormerod (1996) agrees, and states both that profiles should be treated as opinion and not as statement of detail, likewise he writesProfile evidence generates great prejudice for the impeach who possessed the stated characteristics, yet it is insufficiently probative to point to the charge as being the guilty manReferring back to Canters first psychological profile, accurate on 13 out of 17 points, again this appears to be an indication that offender profiling is not an exact science as his effronterys were 76.47% accurate, certainly a good indicator but not proof beyond reasonable doubt. A scientific experiment should be reproducible, providing the alike(p) results regardless of the individual conducting the experiment. With offender profiling, differing results may be induced, or deduced, depending on the education, experience and knowledge of the person creating the profile.The UK Coals to Newcastle (CTN) project (1995), jointly developed by the London Metropolitan Police and the Home Office, aimed to let operational care to law enforcement in the investigation of serious crimes, as well as attempt to develop offender profiling as a science. (Gudjonsson Copson, 1997)The main(prenominal) question asked by the CTN project was that of whether or not that profiling told an investigation officer except what he or she already knew, or if it could declare oneself information that could assist with an investigation. The report did show that of the 184 instances c everyplaceed by the project, 88 of them were dealt with by only two individuals, an academic psychologist and a clinical psychologist, both of whom had been real by the chief police officers committee. (Gudjonsson Copson, 1997).The qualifications held by profilers used by law enforcement tend to be in the fields of psychology and psychiatry, for example Dr Paul Britton specialised in psychopathology and sexual dysfunction and Prof essor David Canter in applied psychology, later developing the field of investigative psychology. (www.ia-ip.org)So, it is here, that this author feels that proof is presented, that education plays a vital and important contribution in the development of a profiler, especially if one is to be accredited for use by the police in the UK.Professor David Canter, in his paper on Offender profiling and criminal differentiation (2000), notes that there are some promising results shown in some areas of study and that these results are intimately possible to be of value to police investigations if the police officers are educate accordingly and that the methods described are utilized during the construction of the systems that provoke support the decision making process.It was Canters development of the Radex model (2000) that attempted to offer a different approach to classifying criminal behaviour by secerning dominant themes in behaviour sooner than oversimplifying criminals into ce rtain types. protrude 1 shows a usual model for a radex as applied to criminal actions with, at its centre, actions that may be considered typical of all criminals and moving to the periphery, actions that are more specific. Figure 2 is a representation that attempts to distinguish the different qualities of behavioral science in criminal behaviour. The Radex model proved useful to Hodge (1998) and lent to the expiry during her analysis of spatial patterns in serial murder that in crimes of original violence there is likely to be a substantial train of interpersonal interaction between victim and offender.Source Canter (2000) Offender profiling and criminal differentiationIt was Canter Heritages published study of breach in 1990 that first demonstrate the existence of a radial structure for crime and that using a multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) analysis by correlating the variables collected, they were able to represent these correlations in relation to each other allowin g for trends, patterns and a behavioural salient analysis of criminal behaviour. This method of analysis may be described as inductive criminal profiling, in that the information self-contained is from limited population samples and is not loss to be specifically related to any one single case. Also, inductive profiles can be rather generalised and tend to be averaged from the data. Information is only collected from those offenders that have already been caught and this author notes from those who agree to interview or answering a prepared questionnaire and those captured offenders that are actually capable of doing so. This would seem to indicate that there is going to be a possibility that those individuals with either no saving or understanding and certain social dysfunctional disorders may have difficulty comprehending the nature of the questioning and would therefore be unable to rear reliable answers. Also, there must be some consideration to the fact that they may not ac tually tell the truth. In addition, the most skillful and perhaps, most intelligent criminals that avoid being caught are not going to be included in the data set. As a result, information could be missing from the criminal profile. (Turvey, 2001)In contrast to inductive profiling, deductive offender profiling relies on the examination of purviews of crime, forensic evidence as well as behavioural motivation for criminal behaviour in relation to a single crime. This is the source for the many successful gaming and crime shows on television and film, including Cracker, the CSI series, Criminal Minds and Silence of the Lambs, where, on TV, they usually solve the crime within the hour. This could possibly lead to a false impression in the public eye of just how effective and lush paced offender profiling really is. Deductive profiling takes time and relies on several aspects when the profile is created, such as the offenders emotional state during the offense, patterns of behaviou r and personality characteristics at the crime guesswork as well as a study into the choice of the offenders victim, known as victimology. (Kocsis, 2006)In 1973, Howard Teten, wily Mullany and Robert Ressler of the FBI used the so(prenominal) new criminal investigative analysis techniques to create a profile of a white, young, male, peeping tom with sexual and homicidal tendencies that led directly to the arrest of David Meirhofer for the abduction and murder of a seven year old girl. The 1978 FBI profile of the so-called Vampire of Sacramento, Richard Chase, was created following a study of the disorder of the crime scene, body type and mental temperament and concluded that the offender was disorganized, hed be unemployed, live alone, would be ethnically white, thin, undernourished and his mid-twenties. (Lerner Lerner, 2006) Deductive logical thinking is useful in establishing a Modus Operandi (MO) and the signature of a particular criminal. Geberth (1996) specify both the MO and signature as being a projectile method of operation that changes over time as the offender becomes more experienced and that the significant personal identifiers can distinguish the nature of the offenders crime scenes and methodological analysis respectively.The classification of offenders as being either nonionised or disorganised (Ressler et al, 1995) has been debated and Turvey (2001) dismisses this dichotomy of organised versus disorganised for several reasons, including that of psychopathy being a complex personality disorder and should not be fake simply by the lack of psychotic behaviour or evidence. A disorganised crime scene could be the result of non-psychotic events, such as those created in domestic violence, anger-retaliatory offences, those that involve the use of controlled substances and those scenes that have been changed by the offender for the purpose of staging a crime or possibly as an anti-forensics exercise. Turvey further states that this false dicho tomy as he describes it, does not take into account the fact that an offender may learn from their mistakes and/or successes and subsequently may develop and modify their criminal behaviour with experience.The 2004 study by Canter, Alison, Alison and Wentnik of serial killer behaviour with secondary sources showed that most offenders leaveing exhibit, and the crime scene may reveal, a mix of both organised and disorganised characteristics. For example, whilst an attack may initially start as a premeditated organised assault, if it deteriorates or an unexpected event occurs, such as the inability to control a victim, it may lead to an escalation in the direct of violence. It is also noted that Canter et al proposed the offenders emotional state, victim enemy and the fact that more than one offender is involved may create a different emergent patterns.The Behavioural psychoanalysis Unit (BAU) of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the result of the initial deve lopment by Howard Teten and Pat Mullany in 1969 to try and explain the actions and behavioural characteristics of violent offenders. Robert Ressler, who invented the destination serial killer (Murder Casebook, p4311) was responsible for founding the National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) and it is within this section of the FBI that the BAU is a component. Whilst popularised in the media, and specifically the current American CBS TV series, Criminal Minds, it is noted that, despite their behavior on TV and in film, there is no position with the gentle of Profiler within the FBI. (www.fbi strains.gov/114.asp)The FBI utilises this deductive style of profiling and appears to rely less on clinical psychology methodology than perhaps the British profilers do and has over time created a considerable knowledge base that is used to assist Federal, state, local and international law enforcement agencies. According to former FBI Special broker Gregg McCrary, and contributin g author to the Crime Classification Manual (1992), the FBI methodology is based upon investigators trying to collect information about the offender including the what was the antecedent, or trigger, for the events that took place, the method and manner of the victim and attack, information relating to the disposal, or not, of the victim as well as post-offence behaviour, such as being close to the investigation and contacting investigators or attempting to inject themselves in to proceedings. The FBI methodology for profiling violent crime is a four stage process beginning with the collection of data at the scene, forensic analysis and also coroner, autopsy and witness reports.Next, the methodology involves classifying and then reconstructing the crime by experienced observations about the MO, signature and motivation for the offence. This will include trying to ascertain why the offender chose this particular victim on this particular day, why they used the tools they did and als o the whether the motivation for the crime was that of power reassurance or assertiveness or anger in a retaliatory or excitational way. That is to say, the observations raised will look to answer whether the offender could be a serial psychosexual sadistic killer or if the crime was one of passion or revenge.The final stage of the FBI methodology is that of creating the profile and this may well involve demographic information, educational dry land and intellectual functioning, family and personality characteristics, legal and arrest history, habits and social interests as well as any evidence in relation to the actual scene of the crime. (Shalev, 2010)Offender profiling and crime analysis can also be aided by profiling the geography of an area in which a crime was committed. Research by Holmes Holmes (2002) attempted to define crime scene locations as being either an encounter site, an attack site, a crime site or a victim and vehicle disposal site. This, when combine with info rmation previously gathered, may give clues as to the residence of an offender and assist with creating the overall criminal profile. Rossmo (2000) had earlier defined geographic profiling as a methodology that can be used to identify locations connected to a series of crimes that may determine the most likely area of residence for an offender.In conclusion, the author would like to return to the assertion made at the beginning of this essay, that offender profiling is educated guesswork. It has been shown through this essay that education, as well as experience, or life education, plays a vital role when considering all aspects of creating a profile for the purposes of aiding a criminal investigation. Whether this education is that of a clinical, research or field based experience, it can bring with it valuable knowledge that can assist an investigation. Copson (1995) and Gudjonsson Copson (1997) asked respondents whether they thought that the advice supplied by profilers proved t o operationally useful and 82.6% replied that it was. Although, when asked if the advice opened new lines of enquiry, 82.1% replied that it did not and only in 2.7% of cases did the profile lead to the actual identification of the offender.The author also stated that offender profiling is not an exact science and this has been demonstrated from Canters first profile being accurate to around 76% through to the Association of Chief Police Officers guidelines that offender profiling should be treated with caution and should be considered as one of many tools that can provide advice and lines of inquiry for the investigative team to follow.So, if offender profiling, as it is commonly known, is not an exact science, could it be that this field of study is an art form? If it is considered an art, then as Pablo Picasso said,Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.Perhaps there is a line of latitude that can be drawn between that statement from the famous artist and the subject of crimin al profiling, in that, through being able to guide certain aspects of an offenders personality and behaviour and consider the alternatives, useful information may present itself.Therefore, it is this authors opinion that profilers will continue to make valid and sustained contributions to criminal investigations, whether it is substantial will very much depend upon the profiler tasked with the job and the type of offence committed.