FREE INTRODUCTION MODULE

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1 International Security Training, LLC Free Intro Module Criminal Profiling Page 1 of 5 FREE INTRODUCTION MODULE THE ART & SCIENCE OF DETERMINING THE IDENTITY OF UNKNOWN RAPISTS & KILLERS International Security Training, LLC Free Intro Module Criminal Profiling Page 1 of 5

2 International Security Training, LLC Free Intro Module Criminal Profiling Page 2 of 5 Introduction Offender profiling, is a behavioral and investigative tool that is intended to help investigators to accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown criminal subjects or offenders. Offender profiling is also known as criminal profiling, criminal personality profiling, criminological profiling, behavioral profiling or criminal investigative analysis. Geographic profiling is another method to profile an offender. Television shows such as Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Profiler in the 1990s, the television series Criminal Minds, and the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs have lent many names to what the FBI calls "criminal investigative analysis". The first offender profile was assembled by detectives of the Metropolitan Police on the personality of Jack the Ripper, a serial killer who had murdered a series of prostitutes in the 1880s. Police surgeon Thomas Bond was asked to give his opinion on the extent of the murderer's surgical skill and knowledge. Bond's assessment was based on his own examination of the most extensively mutilated victim and the post mortem notes from the four previous canonical murders. How Does Profiling Typically Work? Profiling has taken root in the United States, where, until recent decades, profilers relied mostly on their own intuition and informal studies. Schlossberg, who developed profiles of many criminals, including David International Security Training, LLC Free Intro Module Criminal Profiling Page 2 of 5

3 International Security Training, LLC Free Intro Module Criminal Profiling Page 3 of 5 Berkowitz, New York City's "Son of Sam", describes the approach he used in the late 1960s and 70s: "What I would do, is sit down and look through cases where the criminals had been arrested. I listed how old the perpetrators were, whether they were male or female, their level of education. Did they come from broken families? Did they have school behavioral problems? I listed as many factors as I could come up with, and then I added them up to see which were the most common." The Psychology / Law Enforcement Relationship Among those in the profiling field, the tension between law enforcement and psychology still exists to some degree. The difference is really a matter of the FBI being more oriented towards investigative experience than academic psychologists are. It's important to remember, that we're all working toward the same thing. In modern criminology, offender profiling is generally considered the "third wave" of investigative science. The first wave was the study of clues, pioneered by Scotland Yard in the 19th century. The second wave was the study of crime itself (frequency studies and the like). The third wave is the study of the psyche of the criminal. International Security Training, LLC Free Intro Module Criminal Profiling Page 3 of 5

4 International Security Training, LLC Free Intro Module Criminal Profiling Page 4 of 5 Problems Surrounding Criminal Profiling Incorrect information from profiling can lead to false positives or false negatives. Investigators may find a suspect who appears to fit an incorrect profile and ignore or stop investigating other leads. For example, Richard Jewell was wrongly investigated (and attacked in the media) following the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta. This not only caused great distress to Jewell, but delayed identifying the true culprit, Eric Robert Rudolph. This was a false positive: the profile identified Jewell as the offender when in fact he was not. The opposite of the false positive is the false negative: the profile yields incorrect information which would cause investigators to ignore a suspect who is actually guilty. For example, in the Beltway sniper attacks, the offender profile indicated that the killer was probably a white male in his thirties from the DC area acting alone in fact, the crimes were perpetrated by two black males, one of whom was 41 and the other 17 years old, from the west coast of the U.S. Some people have questioned its scientific validity. Many profilers and FBI agents are not psychologists, and some researchers who looked at profile work found methodological flaws. Critics of the practice of offender profiling have mainly contended that few studies have produced clear, quantifiable, evidence of a link between crime scene actions and offender characteristics. International Security Training, LLC Free Intro Module Criminal Profiling Page 4 of 5

5 International Security Training, LLC Free Intro Module Criminal Profiling Page 5 of 5 Career Guidance Current research shows, there isn t a job title of Criminal Profiler that a person can apply for. Instead, criminal profiling is a duty, job task, and specialty that some law enforcement, private investigation, psychologists, and psychiatrists obtain after years of experience. If you decide to enroll in this course, you ll enter the world of intrigue, excitement, problem solving, and controversy. Are you up for the challenge? If so, goto and enroll TODAY! International Security Training, LLC Free Intro Module Criminal Profiling Page 5 of 5