How do investigators catch notorious criminals wanted for gruesome crimes? With some clever analysis and psychological theory, offender profiles can be built to pin down the patterns, locations and identities of the most horrific criminal minds. Let's explore offender profiling in forensic psychology.
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Jetzt kostenlos anmeldenHow do investigators catch notorious criminals wanted for gruesome crimes? With some clever analysis and psychological theory, offender profiles can be built to pin down the patterns, locations and identities of the most horrific criminal minds. Let's explore offender profiling in forensic psychology.
Offender profiling is a practice done in forensic psychology used to help identify potential suspects involved in a crime. We can define offender profiling as:
An investigative tool is used to identify, arrest and convict unknown people who have committed criminal offences.
Forensic psychologists carry out offender profiling to help police services. Building a profile of the offender of a crime can include victim/witness statements and crime scene evidence.
Understanding more about the offender and their motivations can help identify possible criminal behaviour patterns that could help an investigation and the apprehension of the criminal in question. Offender profiles could also contain potential interview strategies for obtaining as much information about related crimes as possible from a guilty offender.
In England, one of the earliest known cases of offender profiling concerns the unknown identity of Jack the Ripper in the 1880s. In Whitechapel in London, this still unidentified serial killer gruesomely murdered a presumably unknown number of women. Crime scene and victim autopsy evidence revealed a predicted offender profile.
Dr Thomas Bond, a physician who carried out the autopsy of the last found victim, thought that her killer fit the profile of a man of middle age, who was a loner, had a respectable appearance and had no knowledge of human anatomy.
The offender profile was made using the crime scene and autopsy evidence. For example, a solitary life is expected due to the predicted time of the murders (late at night or early hours of the morning), suggesting that no family or work colleagues would be present to become suspicious of any strange behaviour.
The mystery case of Jack the Ripper is still a popular discussion point for many today. Many identity theories and tours of relevant locations around London are being offered as an attraction for enthusiasts.
A more successful historical case of offender profiling is that of George Metesky, known as the 'mad bomber', who detonated 30-plus bombs in New York City public areas in the 1940s and 50s. Famous psychiatrist James Brussel successfully identified an offender profile for the bomber, including what kind of clothes he would wear.
James Brussel also created an offender profile that led to the capture and confession of the Boston Strangler in the USA in 1964.
Two main types of offender profiling are used across the UK and the US. They were developed using different strategies and are known as the top-down and bottom-up approaches.
The top-down approach is an American approach as it is used, and was developed by, the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), who pioneered their behavioural science unit in the 1970s.
It is called the top-down approach because investigators use crime scene evidence to identify the offender's characteristics and fit them into pre-determined categories, sorting the characteristics from the top down.
The FBI interviewed 36 sexually motivated killers (including Ted Bundy), creating typologies (categories of characteristics put into classifications) based on responses to questions, such as possible triggers and warning signs for criminal behaviour.
Using these typologies from the interviews, Ressler (1986) developed the organised and disorganised classification system for offender profiling.
Organised Offenders | Disorganised Offenders |
Typically, organised offenders:
| Typically, disorganised offenders:
|
Organised offenders likely are:
| Disorganised offenders likely:
|
Organised offenders can be more difficult to catch than disorganised types due to the planning involved, the lengths they go to cover their crimes and because they are often more familiar with police investigation techniques.
According to Douglas et al. (1986), there are typically four steps followed in the top-down approach:
The bottom-up approach is the British investigative process of offender profiling. Pioneered by David Canter and Paul Britton, Canter is the UK’s leading profiling expert.
There are no typologies used in this approach, offender profiles are made using crime scene evidence and statistics. A computer programme uses the data inputted from the crime scene to generate correlations for patterns of criminal behaviour.
The bottom-up approach is also known as investigative psychology, which we will look at in more detail below.
As previously mentioned, offender profiling is used within forensic psychology. Here we will explore investigative psychology and geographical profiling as ways of offender profiling in psychology.
In the United Kingdom in 1985, an offender known as the Railway Rapist - wanted for over 20 cases of sexual assault and three murders, was successfully profiled by a psychologist called Dr David Canter as a man called John Duffy.
For example, the profile included information about Duffy living close to the first three crimes, and as predicted, he was small in stature and not conventionally attractive.
This led Dr Canter to develop the method of investigative psychology.
Investigative psychology uses statistical procedures and psychological theory to analyse crime scene evidence and generate a database of criminal behaviour patterns which can be matched to specific offenders.
There are five main aspects of offender profiling looked at in investigative psychology:
To examine this more closely, we study a person's:
There are several forms of geographical profiling from different psychologists to gain information about offender hunting patterns.
Geographical profiling is the investigative process of using information on crime locations to determine the offender's residence or base of activity.
Circle Theory proposed by Dr Canter suggests two models of geographical profiling for an offender: the marauder - who commits crimes near their home or base, and the commuter - who commits crimes some distance away from their residence.
The bottom-up approach can be used in a wider range of crimes than the top-down approach, such as burglary. The top-down approach can only profile crimes of sexually motivated killers, as that is where the categorisations stem from. The top-down approach is also reductionist due to its simplicity.
Because the bottom-up approach uses science and statistical analysis, it could be said the bottom-up approach is a stronger method of offender profiling.
Despite its advantages, the bottom-up approach has had some significant failures in catching offenders.
Other research supports using geographical profiling and spatial information to catch an offender.
Offender profiling is an investigative tool used to identify, arrest and convict unknown people who have committed criminal offences.
Investigative psychology uses statistical procedures and psychological theory to analyse crime scene evidence and generate a database of criminal behaviour patterns which can be matched to specific offenders.
Offender profiling is part of forensic psychology.
This method is known as the top-down approach. The main limitations are that it is reductionist (the classification system is too simple) and this approach can only be applied to sexually motivated killers, as this was the sample that the FBI interviewed to create typologies.
Offender profiling is a practice done in forensic psychology as a method of identifying unknown criminals.
True or False: Offender profiling is a practice done in forensic psychology.
True.
What is offender profiling?
An investigative tool used to identify, arrest and convict unknown people who have committed criminal offences.
Building a profile of the offender of a crime can include what?
True or False: Understanding more about the offender and their motivations can help identify possible criminal behaviour patterns that could lead the police to catch them.
True.
In England, one of the earliest known cases of offender profiling concerns the unknown identity of Jack the Ripper in the 1880s. Where did these murders take place?
Whitechapel, London.
Who carried out the autopsy of Jack the Ripper's last victim and built an offender profile?
Dr Thomas Bond.
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