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Offender Profiling

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Title: Offender Profiling


1
Offender Profiling
  • Are we all Crackers?

2
Offender Profiling
  • The typical profiler seen as
  • quintessential hero pitted against our new and
    modern monster, the serial killer (Oleson 1996)
  • Its the new, sexy specialist job in forensic
    science.
  • But is its importance overrated?

3
Offender Profiling
  • Historically police and psychology have not had a
    good relationship.
  • Police (in particular CID) believe that only
    information that can be used easily in court is
    worth gathering.
  • Psychologists have not always been recognised by
    courts
  • Until recently, that is!

4
Criminal Profiling
  • 1888 Thomas Bond, a police surgeon created a
    detailed description of Jack the Ripper,
  • But the ripper was never apprehended.

5
Criminal Profiling
  • William Langer, (1942) a psychiatrist, produced a
    profile of Adolf Hitler, diagnosing his mental
    state and correctly predicting what would happen
    were he to be defeated i.e. suicide.

6
The Mad Bomber of New York
  • George Metesky
  • Series of bombs in New York 1956
  • James Brussel was able to produce a psychological
    profile of the suspect
  • Google the name for full story
  • Accurate even to style of dress!

7
The Boston Strangler
  • Profiled as two male schoolteachers living
    alone, one of whom was probably homosexual
  • Albert DeSalvo heterosexual construction worker
    living with his family

8
Criminal Profiling
  • So, one danger in profiling possibility of
    tunnel vision of investigators.
  • Yorkshire Ripper case in point

9
Offender Profiling Current Approaches
  • American
  • Incarcerated serial murderers (36) interviewed
  • Categorised into organised or disorganised
  • View crime scene for indicators

10
Offender Profiling Current Approaches - American
  • Basis of FBI Approach is
  • crime scene and MO as indicators of individual
    pathology
  • compare with known offenders
  • may fit pattern

11
Offender Profiling Current Approaches - American
  • Organised and disorganised murderers
  • Obtained from interviews with serial murderers,
    e.g. Manson, bundy
  • Based on analysis of Crime scene, say whether
    offender fits any of the criteria, and produce
    profile
  • Can be used to detect, but also to predict and
    therefore prevent

12
Offender Profiling Current Approaches - American
  • Aims of American profiling approach are
  • Reduce scope of investigation
  • Allow some prediction of future offences
  • Provide a psychological evaluation of belongings
    found in the murderers possession, e.g. souvenirs
    from previous offences
  • Provide strategies for interviewing.

13
Offender Profiling Current Approaches - American
  • Known as holistic or top-down approach
  • Data from scene and from MO compared with
    previously known information
  • Mainly with murderers in USA, not so often with
    lesser crimes

14
Offender Profiling Current Approaches - British
  • British approach is less subjective
  • Called bottom up method, or data-driven,
  • Data is collected and analysed to produce
    definite, measured, specific associations between
    offences and offender characteristics.

15
Offender Profiling Current Approaches - British
  • Dominated by David Canter
  • Made his name with the Railway Rapist in 1985

16
David Canter
  • Traditionally, the only valuable clues at a crime
    scene were hard evidence, e.g.
  • blood,
  • semen
  • Fingerprints
  • Hair
  • etc.

17
David Canter
  • Profiling proposes that there are also less
    recognised clues
  • the choice of victim,
  • the location,
  • the nature of the assault,
  • what is and isn't left behind,
  • what is and isn't said to the victim,
  • whether or not the victim is killed
  • which also define the offender. The problem is to
    interpret these clues correctly.

18
David Canter
  • Over a period of four years, a series of sexual
    assaults and rapes, culminating in the murder of
    three women, had been committed in the London
    area.
  • The police had linked all these crimes to the
    same man but, despite extensive inquiries, had
    failed to make an arrest.

19
David Canter
  • Canter went through each case in detail, looking
    at
  • the location,
  • time of day,
  • and the nature of the victim,
  • and drew up a profile of the likely suspect,
    including where he was likely to be living.

20
David Canter
  • As a result of this profile, the police were able
    to focus their investigation on John Duffy, a man
    who had previously ranked no higher than 1,505th
    on the list of possible suspects and, within a
    comparatively short period of time, had gathered
    enough evidence to convict.

21
Evaluation of Profiling
  • Undoubted potential if used properly by trained
    professionals
  • Some criticism is that it depends on
    over-reliance of expert profilers without the
    contribution of experienced police officers.

22
Evaluation of Profiling
  • Success rates?
  • 1981 FBI report
  • 192 cases of profile generation, 88 arrests, of
    which 17 used the profile information.

23
Evaluation of Profiling
  • Success rates?
  • UK Copson Holloway interviewed detectives.
  • 184 cases involving profiling
  • Of these, 2.7 profiling led directly to
    identification of offender
  • 16 where profiling had helped to solve

24
Useful or Not?
  • Professional profilers vs detectives
  • Simulated detection of two cases, one sex, one
    murder

25
Useful or Not?
  • Profilers produced loads of rich information,
  • More accurate than non-profilers
  • Profilers best with sex offence
  • Detectives best with murder

26
Useful or Not?
  • Conclusion is that productive liaison between
    psychologists and police is the way forward.
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