Forensic Psychology: Offender Profiling and Human Identification

The application of forensic psychology into investigation, prosecution and working with victims has undergone several theories. The psychology of detection has used many methods including Offender Profiling, Eyewitness Testimony and Interviewing. Offender profiling was initially introduced by Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI) supplying a possible description of a perpetrator of the crime that is being investigated. This is on the assumption that an analysis has been made on the crime scene, victim and any other evidence that is connected to the crime. Offender profiling, according to (Davies 1977) states that is most controversial and misunderstood domain as it is exaggerated by media attention and imaginative narration rather than facts and historical reference. Davies tells us that it is a feasible process but is not verified; it could harbour a subjective judgement, and more often than not render distinguishing elements.

So where do we begin? How are we going to find this person who committed this crime? Obviously, we could look at the results of any forensic tests; we could talk to eyewitnesses and so on. But forensic tests take time, and don’t always provide a conclusive result. To embark on a journey to find perpetrators of crime we would start by examining the outcomes of any forensic tests and interview any eyewitnesses. Forensic tests can be a lengthy process and sometimes are inconclusive in their findings as they may well only deliver a fraction of the evidence that is desired. Also eyewitness testimonies are not always readily obtainable.

Offender profiling is attempting to identify the suspect from what knowledge we have about the crime itself. A prominent case of offender profiling is of the Washington Snipers. In the autumn of 2002 ten people were murdered and an additional three were injured in Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC in the United States of America. The murderers departed in midst the gathering and chaos that had occurred after they had aimed a single gunshot at their target from a far. There seemed to be no evidence to link the victims who had been targeted whist going about their own business. The shootings happened in shops, car parks and outside the victims houses and as a result the attacks appeared to be totally random. There was an urgency to capture the murderers for the crime they had committed and the fear for the next episode of killing. Unfortunately there were hardly any clues to who the culprits were. Although there were limited eyewitness testimonies the accounts were contradictory. The Washington Snipers case had mass media coverage and following. There was an appeal to invite forensic psychologists; criminologists; homicide detectives and FBI criminal profilers to help solve the crimes. The profiles that were created by these professionals became public information and gave everybody a chance to picture what the offender or offenders was like in terms of appearance and personality. It was interesting to see who had committed these crimes in comparison to what the profilers had said.

On CNN on 11th October, 2002 Pat Brown a self-taught profiler and author stated that the offender is a psychopath and immersed in entitlement and control. He would be fixated and addicted to achieving sensations of extreme power and would be fascinated by Rambo and Schwarzenegger films. He also said that the location of the Sniper would be Maryland a bordering state of Washington DC. Candice DeLong, a retired FBI agent and field profiler, less than a week later, on the 16th October 2002, stated in the New York Times as saying she envisaged him strutting around in an arrogant manner, his demeanour and deportment would be of a man who would behave in a superior manner dressed up like a fictitious super hero, maybe his profession is a fire-fighter or construction worker. Gregg McCrary, former profiler and instructor at the FBI Academy’s profiling unit, stated in the Washington Post, on 23rd of October, 2002, that the Sniper was a white male taking in account the demographics of the area of Washington where these crimes were being committed. Looking at the geographic position of the culprits dwelling, Robert Ressler a former FBI profiler, remarked on CNN on the 18th of October, 2002 that, he thought it was evident that there was more than one person involved in the crimes and that they were long-term residents in the affluent metropolitan district of Washington which in contrast to the other profilers, Brown, DeLong and McCrary. The identical facts that were initially given, it is clear to see that all these profilers were coming up with inconsistent profiles of the Sniper in terms of geographically where their residence is or if it is one person that has committed the crimes or several. The perpetrators of the crime were a 41 year old, Gulf War veteran, John Muhammad and his accomplice, 17 year old John Lee Malvo from Jamaica. The hypothesis made on the ethnicity of the perpetrator was incorrect as it was not a white male but two black men. The men were not fire-fighters or worked in the building trade but one was redundant veteran. There is no clear answer to why the profiles given by the profilers were so varying.

(YouTube) revealed that FBI trained profilers are not reliably healthier at identifying the probable characteristics of an offender. And this uncertainty as to the authority of FBI trained profilers emanates through in all the published accounts. On some extents some profilers did better than significant others, and on other latitudes they do not.
So what the alternative approaches exists that the use of crime scene to surmise something of the crime scene of the offender? Undoubtedly the most celebrated unconventional approach is the Investigative Psychology that ascended from David Canter’s work. Now in terms of using the crime scene to convey to us something about the offender, the aim of Investigative Psychology is much the similar as that of the FBI’s approach. Fundamentally you want what is desired is to be able to communicate to the investigating officers details about the characteristics of an offender from their activities while committing the crime. This will then permit investigators to taper down their search of suspects. However in contrasts to the FBI’s approach, Investigative Psychology challenges to identify these characteristics by scrutinizing behaviour in a way that is independent of psychological procedure that supports it. This proposes, Investigative Psychologists are not fixated on identifying ‘why’ the offender commits the crime, (what > why> who) Instead, Investigative Psychology simply determines the characteristics of the offender throughout the crime. (What > who>) With this approach, it is conceivable to statistically analyse greater data collections to break down crime scenes into their constituent parts and then relate these modules to individual features of the offender. These analyses are then submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals where additional researchers critically assess whether the analysis has been shepherded permitting to the appropriate research practices. Different to the FBI’s case by case approach, analysis of hefty data groups in this method permits more inevitability in defining how often particular styles of behaviour are transparent in specific crimes.

A worthy illustration of this methodology is seen in a primary analysis shepherded by Salfati and Canter that was published in 1999. (Differentiating Stranger Murders: Profiling Offender Characteristics from Behavioural Styles C. Gabrielle Salfati and David V. Canter.) Salfati and Canter observed 82 British cases of single perpetrator-single victim murder crime scenes that had been disentangled. They were attentive to understand whether there would be a thematic arrangement to the activities that transpired at these crime scenes. So they coded the information in the police murder files for the occurrence or non-appearance of an assortment of variables, which echoed *actions by the offender on the victim, *description of offender behaviour carried out by the offender at the crime scene, *characteristics of the offender and *characteristics of the victim. The changeable data that transpired in more than 90% of cases or in less than 10 % of the cases were disqualified as they were perceived to be either too frequent or too sporadic to help the classification. Salfati and Canter then examined this data to identify the frequent occurrence of each variable with each other variable. And this analysis certified them to achieve a visual depiction of factors that repeatedly emerged and those which were very improbable to co-occur in this nature of crime. So for example Salfati and Canter found that in these categories of homicide cases, it was rare to find a body facing up where possessions of worth had been removed from the victim or the crime scene.

Owing to this process of analysis Salfati and Canter identified three crime scene themes which reveal the reason and significance of the aggression in the offence. The first of these is the expressive (impulsive) where the primary objective of the aggression appears to be to injure the victim. Instrumental (opportunistic) and instrumental (cognitive) is where the murder is the result of other central drives such as the desire for objects. Now of the 82 cases comprised in the analysis, 53 cases could be categorised as presenting a dominant impulsive, opportunistic or cognitive crime scene theme. And of these 53 cases, 21 followed an impulsive theme of murder crime scene behaviour. So, an expressive impulsive crime scene consisted of several stab wounds throughout the victim’s body, various other natures of injuries, bringing a weapon to the scene and sourcing an instrument from the scene in amongst other behaviours. If we were looking to see if this was a selfish or unselfish criminal, it would be the first. The offender would have complete disregard for the victim by being offensive, abusive, threatening and using sexually oriented language. If the primary motivation was rape, sexual domination and the victim’s resistance would have little effect on the offender. This type of offender is not looking to involve the victim in the act or looking to seek intimacy. However the most common type of rapist is the Power Reassurance Type, whose motivation derives from doubts and fears of sexual inadequacy, with attacks planned in advance. Unlike the Power Assertive Type who may appear friendly but then their demeanour could change dramatically using it to express their dominance, no victim empathy therefore subjecting them to a high level of force. This type of offender has no doubts and fears about their sexuality.

Contrast this with an instrumental cognitive crime scene where, for example, offenders made an effort to conceal their crime: either by performing it outdoors or disposing of the body outside, and by eradicating evidence from the crime scene. Now as this analysis carried out determined incidents, offender characteristics were identified, so it was conceivable to grasp which offender characteristics co-occurred with which crime scene behaviours. So, for example a perpetrator whose crime scene was categorised as expressive impulsive was statistically probable to have performed historical violent or sexual offences, previous damage to property offences and/or to have been formerly wedded.

Those categorised as ensuring instrumental cognitive crime scenes were statistically more prospective to have served in the armed forces or had a previous prison sentence. So you can see how, the perpetrator in any given case doesn’t digress from the ‘typical’ behaviour established by the analysis of data from this trial, this information would allow for a more concentrated targeting of suspects. That is, if you have an expressive instrumental crime scene then, with all supplementary factors being similar, in depth investigations with those accused who have previous custodies for offences that propose conflict with or in contradiction of other people. The other prominent feature of the analysis of Salafati and Canter is that the interactional behaviour of the offenders while offending does not appear to diverge too extreme from their interactional behavioural style when not offending.

Now David Canter, the leading advocate of Investigative Psychology, proposes that the manner in which people interrelate with one another in their everyday lives is so well planned out and so ingrained that it stimuluses all their interactions with others, including the way that they relate with their victim during offending them. That is consistency in their subjective interactions which is one of the factors in Canter’s five-factor model for interpreting a crime scene, which intentions tell the investigators about the offender’s historical and current experiences in life. The second factor in this model is time and setting contemplations in the selection of where the crime or crimes took place. Crimes scenes are rarely random. Offenders pick the time and the vicinity of their offending for a reason. So investigators possibly able to surmise approximately about the offender centred on their adoptions about when and when to offend. Canter proposed that if an offender is engaging in an offence where he necessities to feel in control, then the offender is prospective to do this in a habitation that is acquainted to him, possibly closer to his roots where he bears more comfort, knowledge and is in control of what is happening. Behaviour involved in or not engaged in at the crime scene can also tell you valuable information about the offender’s background. This may be as simple as a suggestion of prospective level of intelligence of the offender, but it may perhaps be more meticulous. For example, an offender who handles a knife in a very explicit or with specific technique may well have had training in their profession to operate the knife that certain way.

This behaviour will also provide insight into the offender’s forensic pathological awareness, and this is the third factor in Canter’s five-factor model. Imagine, for example that at a crime scene it was well defined that the offender had made diminutive attempt to mask or eliminate forensic evidence. This may advocate that they do not have a large extent of experience on offending for the reason that they are not striving to prevaricate forensic evidence assembling techniques. So this offender may have a small number of or no earlier convictions. Forensic mindfulness is meticulously connected to the fourth dynamic to the criminal life style. This is the notion that the offenders will behave fairly regularly in committing their crimes, so any prior offences committed by this offender will be similar to the current offence.

Criminal career also includes the awareness that the unconventionalities away from the pattern of previous offending behaviour may be in reaction to something that occurred while this person was trying to carry out their crime. For example, an offender who has on no occasion tied up their victim before might perform this act on their victim in the future because a victim fights back in response to the attack. The final factor is criminal characteristics. This is the notion that you can use characteristics of the offence to link it to comparable types of crime. Now an obvious question here is how does this five-factor approach help us figure out what kind of person might have committed the crime? Well once you have studied the crime scene in taking in the account of the five factor model of offender experiences, you can then make interpretations about the characteristics the offender may possess. So this could comprise suggestions about the offender’s inhabited location, their familial or their social characteristics, their own characteristics and their profession or scholastic history. This means that once the investigators have collected data about the prospective characteristics and practises of the offender they will ensure a portrayal of the kind of person who possibly will have perpetrated the crime. This can help create a focal point in the investigation of the offence. Now at this point it could appear like Investigative Psychology is very alike to FBI’s Criminal Investigative Analysis approach. Both seem to create profiles of ‘typical’ offenders, which as we saw from the analysis of Pinizotto and Finkel causes problems when your offender is in the minority that is not typical.

A Key question then is how Investigative Psychology different? Well while both Criminal Investigative Analysis and Investigative Psychology both involve the investigator making interpretations about the offender’s expected characteristics on the foundation of the crime scene, the focus in each type of profile is unique. Profiles produced by Criminal Investigative Analysis incline to concentrate on an offender’s characteristics and their probable motivation. In disagreement profiles created by Investigative Psychology are disposed to centre on the offender’s characteristics and the offender’s prospective location. Typically also, Canter and colleagues research exhausts larger sample proportions than the FBI and subjects the research reinforcement their readings to peer review. So Canter and Alison (2000, P1) debate of an analysis of criminal actions from an objective, often a statistical viewpoint rather than one based on personal intuition and clinical experience. However, it is worth noting that this reliance on statistical methods might introduce its own problems in that at best these kinds of statistical analyses can only show associations between crime scene actions and offender characteristics. And these associations will never be perfect, meaning that there is always possibility that your particular offender is an exception – a statistical outliner if you like – to the general pattern of association seen in that type of case. However Investigative psychology does suggest a more systematic approach to working out the characteristics of the offender. So while David Canter is most well-known for profiling John Duffy, the so-called railway rapist, since then Investigative Psychology has grown as a sub-discipline. Now, those working in Investigative psychology are interested in patterns of criminal behaviour more broadly, and they can help investigators deal with a range of crimes.