4.5: Criminal Profiling

Criminal profiling is synonymous with offender profiling both of which are useful investigative tools used in policing (Woodhams and Toye, 2007). Profiling’s purpose is to identify likely suspects that are correlated with criminal characteristics and patterns. Berg (200) maintains that a Psychological profiler relies heavily upon perpetrators' methods of operation or evidence left at a crime scene to identify a person’s personality or state of mind. The process is not new and dates back to the Jack the Ripper murder campaign in 1888 and has evolved to applications including but not limited to predictive profiling, sexual assault offender profiling, and behaviors recognizable and related to criminal conduct (Canter, 2004).

What is Criminal Profiling?

Offender profiling has been defined in many ways by various scholars based on their backgrounds. Similarly, offender profiling is known by various names such as psychological profiling, criminal profiling, criminal investigative analysis, crime scene analysis, behavioral profiling, criminal personality profiling, sociopsychological profiling and criminological profiling.

As Canter has noted, 'offender profiling' is a term coined by the FBI in the 1970's to describe their criminal investigative analysis work. He maintained that "when FBI agents first began this work, they invented a new term to grace their actions: offender profiling. By doing so they created the impression of a package, a system that was sitting waiting to be employed, rather than the mixture of craft, experience, and intellectual energy that they themselves admit is at the core of their activities.

Canter sees offender profiling as 'criminal shadows'. He maintained that a criminal "leaves psychological traces, tell-tale patterns of behavior that indicate the sort of person he is. Gleaned from the crime scene and reports from witnesses, these traces are more ambiguous and subtle than those examined by the biologist or physicist. They cannot be taken into a laboratory and dissected under the microscope. They are more like shadows, which undoubtedly are connected to the criminal who cast them, but they flicker and change, and it may not always be obvious where they come from. Yet, if they can be fixed and interpreted, criminal shadows can indicate where investigators should look and what sort of person they should be looking for.

Canter and Heritage also maintained that "a criminal leaves evidence of his personality through his actions in relation to a crime. Any person's behavior exhibits characteristics unique to that person, as well as patterns and consistencies which are typical of the subgroup to which he or she belongs".

Ainsworth defined offender profiling as "the process of using all the available information about a crime, a crime scene, and a victim, in order to compose a profile of the (as yet) unknown perpetrator. For Davies, "offender profiling (more technically known as Criminal Investigative Analysis) is the name given to a variety of techniques whereby information gathered at a crime scene, including reports of an offender's behavior is used both to infer motivation for an offence and to produce a description of the type of person likely to be responsible.

Geberth sees a criminal personality profile as "an educated attempt to provide investigative agencies with specific information as to the type of individual who may have committed a certain crime. Turvey, writing from a behavioral evidence analysis point of view, defined offender profiling as "the process of inferring the personality characteristics of individuals responsible for committing criminal acts. For Grubin, offender profiling refers to "information gathered at a crime scene, including reports of an offender's behavior, used both to infer motivation for an offence and to produce a description of the type of person likely to be responsible".

Put simply, offender profiling is a crime investigation technique whereby information gathered from the crime scene, witnesses, victims, autopsy reports and information about an offender's behavior is used to draw up a profile of the sort of person likely to commit such crime. It is a complementary technique and is usually taken up when no physical traces were left at the crime scene. Offender profiling does not point to a specific offender. It is based on the probability that someone with certain characteristics is likely to have committed a certain type of crime.

Rationale for Profiling

There are two operating words in offender profiling: modus operandi (method of operation) and behavior. The modus operandi could lead to clues about the offender. There is the idea that an offender is likely to commit a particular type of crime in a particular or similar pattern. Thus, offender profiling is based on the premise that the modus operandi may lead to clues about the perpetrator and that the crime scene characteristics may point to the personality of the perpetrator. Behavior helps to predict the personality type or the motives for the crime. Therefore, the single most important thing that a pro filer looks for at a scene of crime is anything that may point to the personality of the offender.

The rationale behind this approach is that behavior reflects personality, and by examining behavior the investigator may be able to determine what type of person is responsible for the offense. II When profiling, the profiler notes the physical description, individual traits, any odd behavior and remarks or records of anything that the offender said or did during the attack. Also, to be noted are information about the steps the offender used to avoid being detected, method of killing, or the way he approaches his victims, as well as notes about the offender's gender, age group, race, occupation, and criminal records.

The Purpose/Goals of Profiling

Offender Profiling is mainly used when the offender did not leave any physical trace at the crime scene. It is used to narrow down the suspects list. As Douglas and Olshaker have pointed out, "criminal profiling is used mostly by behavioral scientists and the police to narrow down an investigation to those who posses certain behavioral and personality features that are revealed by the way a crime was committed,,13. Continuing, Douglas and Olshaker also maintained that "the primary goal is to aid local police in limiting and refining their suspect list so that they can direct their resources where they might do the most good".

"Another key use of a profile, is, when necessary, to go proactive, which means letting the public become a partner in crime solving. The unknown suspect may have displayed some sort of odd behavior to those close to him that will indicate his involvement with the crime. Getting the public, and hopefully those people to be aware of what they have seen, telling them to come forward may solve the case".

Offender Profiling in the Courtroom

Offender profiling is a crime investigation technique based on probabilities, stereotypes, suspicion, and assumptions. It does not point to a specific offender as being responsible for a specific offense. Offender profiling only generalizes. As such it is not a method sufficiently reliable to prove the guilt or innocence of an accused. There are no questions as to the usefulness of offender profiling in crime investigations. Where there are question marks and problems are when it is being introduced into the courtroom as evidence. The reliability and validity of offender profiling cannot be ascertained at the moment by any objective method.

The nature of offender profiling does not lend this technique to any form of reliable testing. There is the problem of replicating a crime scene. No one can state with certainty that one offender will commit all crimes in the same manner or exhibit the same characteristics at subsequent crimes. Offenders, especially serial offenders, will learn from experiences, media, from victim responses, and then may change their method of operation. They may also develop new fantasies; hence the signature aspects of their crime may change.

The current position in United States courts is that offender profiling and its derivatives have been admitted in many cases and have been excluded in many others. There has been a lot of inconsistencies. There are several problems with the use of criminal profiling as courtroom evidence. In some of the cases where offender profiling or its derivatives were admitted, it is surprising that the reliability of this technique was never questioned. Some of the courts appeared to have been taken in by the credentials of the profilers at the expense of assessing the reliability and validity of this technique. The fact that a technique is useful in crime investigation does not render it a reliable tool for courtroom use. Utility does not equal/amount to reliability.