Offender Profiling Notes. Preview - Module One: Profiling Approaches. Week One Offender Profiling: An Overview and its Evolution

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1 Offender Profiling Notes Weekly notes week 1-12 Preview - Module One: Profiling Approaches Week One Offender Profiling: An Overview and its Evolution What is Offender Profiling? Offender profiling AKA - criminal profiling, behavioural profiling, crime scene profiling, criminal personality profiling, psychological profiling and criminal investigative analysis OP is a collection of various scientific and psychological theories and techniques that attempt to draw inferences about an offenders characteristics by examining the behaviour exhibited in a crime scene Used to identify the major personality and behavioural characteristics of an individual based upon an analysis of the crimes committed o Skill is in recognising the crime scene dynamics that link various criminal personality types who commit similar crimes What Does Profiling Do? Investigative Phase: Informs investigative strategy by reducing the suspect pool, case linkage, addressing potential for offender escalation o Case Linkage linkage analysis is the process of successfully identifying which offences were committed by the same offender (linkage blindness is failure to do this) o Offender Escalation committing more offences in shorter time period of time or committing more heinous crimes.. Trial Phase: Assist police in preparation for hearing and trial by developing interrogation techniques, develop insight into offender fantasy (important premeditation) and motivations and develop insight into state of mind What does profiling assume? Behavioural Consistency: an offender behaves in a similar way in each offence o Consistent manner each time they offend Behavioural Distinctiveness: offender behaves in ways that are unique so the offences committed by one person are different from those committed by another Homology of offender groups: offenders with similar background characteristics display similar crime scene behaviour o Regression analysis to determine certain type of behaviours that are linked together Evolution of Profiling History

2 1486 Malleus Maleficarum: One of the first systematic attempts to identify and make inferences about suspects in the 15 th century it was a guide on how to hunt witches o Highlights bias and ambiguity which favours rule makers (e.g. young white male hunters chose to strip down young attractive females) Late 1700s Franz Gall s Phrenology: 37 mental and moral faculties indicated by bumps and contours of the skull noted murder organ in murderers 1876 Cesare Lombroso s the Criminal Man: criminals have different head shapes, ear, jaw, noses 18 abnormalities indicating criminals lower rung on the evolutionary ladder and assumed a predisposition to crime o Deviation in head size and shape, asymmetry of the face, dimensions of jaw and cheekbones, eye defects, ears of unusual size, nose abnormalities, big lips, pouches in check, peculiar palates, abnormal dentition, chin like apes, wrinkles, anomalies of hair, defects of thorax, inversion of sexual characters, excessive length of arms, supernumerary of fingers and toes, imbalance of hemispheres of the brain o Modern research does show that attractive people are less likely to commit crimes 1888 Dr Thomas Bond: profiled jack the ripper (specialist in forensic medicine) great physical strength, middle aged, respectfully dressed, cloak or overcoat, without regular occupation.. Late 1880s/Early 1900s Dr Hans Gross: applied scientific method to profiling and was the first to test them like a scientific hypothesis asserted criminals could best be understood through their crimes Arthur Conan Doyle publishes Sherlock Holmes: Clear logic and use of inductive reasoning that is used in profiles first fictional profilers 1935 Dr Enrich Wulffen: published Women as Sexual Criminal and discussed roles of menstruation and pregnancy partly based on Freudian theory (female sexuality e.g. disturbances and abnormalities) 1940s WW2 Dr Walter Langers profile of Hitler: CIA in US requested psychiatrists Walter Langer provide a profile of Adolf Hitler to inform interrogation strategy should he be captured (accurately predicted suicide) 1950s Ernst Kretshcmer Criminologist develops criminal body types: Body theories not well respected but research on muscularity shows strong males more aggressive - Four body types; o Leptosome or asthenic: Tall and thin theft or fraud (ectomorphs Sheldon) o Athletic: Well developed muscles violent crime (Mesomorph Sheldon) o Pyknic: Short and fat deception, fraud (Endomorphs Sheldon) o Dysplastic (all other types) à indecent and immoral, sometimes violent 1956 Dr James Brussel Profile of Mad Bomber: 37 bombs over 16 years mailed bombs and then sent letters. Profile included characteristics of

3 physical appearance, age, religion, marital status and even clothing compared to suspects and apprehended the bomber 1964 Brussel profiled Boston Strangler: 13 sexual homicides between 1962/64 profile was a match to DeSalvo who confessed 1960s Howard Teten California Police Department introduced profiling: Developed it based on academic background in forensic science, medico-legal death investigation and psychiatry Early 1970s Teten FBI agent established behavioural science unit with Pat Mullany: began teaching his approach naming it Applied Criminology o 1972 BSU established Late 1970s John Douglas and Robert Ressler joined BSU: establish formal profiling program (Teten/Mullany left FBI) they created FBI s modern approach to profiling Dr Murray Miron: Psychologist creates profile of Son of Same based on psycholinguistic analysis of notes sent to newspapers o Shot young couples in parked cars in NY o Profile closely fitted him o 1993: Miron also gave advice on the Branch Davidian sect leader David Koresh however said not suicidal but ended up setting fire to the compound killing himself and about 80 others 1985 David Canter psychologist invited to Scotland Yard to investigate railway rapist: Profiling approach Investigative Psychology helped apprehend John Duffy who was convicted of three murders and 24 rapes Late 1980s Dr Milton Newton & E. Swoope: Published a geographic procedure that includes locations of fatal encounters and body dumps which located Hillside Stranglers home (Cousins Bianchi and Buono convicted of raping, torturing, killing women between in LA) 1994 International Criminal Investigation Analysis Fellowship (ICIAF) founded: Based on CIA approach (FBI approach) responsible for training CIA approach 1995 Kim Rossomo: Published profiling approach that uses geographic principles 1999 Brent Turvey Behavioural Evidence Analysis forensic scientist published introduction to BEA introducing deductive reasoning Early 2000s Richard Kocsis: Forensic psychologist leads Australian team CAP crime action profiling uses statistical procedures to analyse crime behaviours (similar to IP) Logic of Profiling Inductive Profiling: approaches match the unsolved case to similar solved cases that have occurred in the past through o Rely on comparison of past crimes to the current crime (nomothetic analysis of general laws) and then describe offender protectively with regards to what they will be like (trait determination) o Profiler experience (FBI s CIA, DE) o Data on known offender groups (IP, CAP, GP)

4 o Creating/inducing a rule from a series of events (where typologies come from) characteristics about an offender then inferred based on those typical of the known offender group o Inductive conclusions are presented as probabilities because we cannot be certain of the unknown offenders likeness to the comparison group Deductive Profiling conclusion are drawn directly from the evidence if evidence is true then conclusion must be true so can be reported as certainties o Turvey claims BEA is deductive as it creates a profile based on the offender rather then similarity to other offenders o Do not compare to other crime but examine the current crime in depth (idiographic study of specific cases) and descripe offender in regards to what they were like at the time of the crime (state determination) What does a profile contain? The contents of a profile can depend on: o The profiling approach used to construct it o The knowledge and experience of the profiler BRUSSEL S PROFILE OF THE MAD BOMBER Example - o Male - I believe this merely because the manufacture of explosives and detonative devices began, and for a long time continued, as a man s job. o The bomber was neither thin nor fat - Based on Kretschmer s 1950s body type research. o He is middle-aged: paranoia develops slowly. It doesn t erupt in its full force before the person is 35. This man has been making and planting his devices for 16 years. o The bomber is foreign born or since his teens has been living with people of foreign extraction: There was a stilted tone in the letters, a total lack of slang of American colloquialisms. He not only suggested the offender was foreign, but specified he was Slavic. He reasoned that most people who used bombs were from Europe, and so were those who used knives (bomber had used a knife to cut holes in the theatre seats where he placed his bombs). o When you find him, he will be wearing a navy-blue, double-breasted suit, buttoned. In explaining the suit, he said that he felt the bomber would be neat, proper, and conservative, and would avoid newer styles of clothing. George Metesky was arrested at night so he was wearing his PJs. Officers allowed him to get dressed and he emerged wearing a navy-blue pinstriped, double-breasted suit. Brussel s other physical characteristics were also remarkably accurate. He was born in Lithuania.

5 Canters Profile of Railway Rapist Example o The killer lives in a small area of Northwest London. Lived in Kilburn, a northwest London suburb. o He is married but does not have children. Married but infertile. o He is a loner, with only one or two male friends. Only two close male friends; though one was an accomplice o He is small in stature. 136cm tall o He has light hair. Strawberry blonde o He is in his mid to late twenties. 28 when arrested o He has a semi-skilled job and a good knowledge of the railway. Carpenter with British Rail. o He has been arrested by police for aggression. Had been charged with raping his wife. Week Two Law Enforcement: FBI s Criminal Investigative Analysis (CIA) Origins 1960s When Howard Teten introduced profiling approach (amongst crime wave associated with hippies) Early 1970s Teten becomes FBI agent and established the Behavioural Sciences Unit with Pat Mullany o 1972 BSU Established Late 1970s John Douglas and Robert Ressler joined the BSU and established formal profiling program (1978 formal profiling approach established) 1986 Douglas, Ressler, Burdess and Hartman publish the criminal profiling generating process Beliefs of CIA Profiling is an art not a science (subjective rather then objective) Profiles are intuitive (probabilistic) CIA Inductive (study lots of cases and apply rules to it), nomothetic approach (compare past crimes to current crime) based on investigative experience Assumptions 1. Behavioural consistency offender commits the same crime in similar ways 2. Behavioural distinctiveness - offender typologies assume offenders behave in ways distinct from other offenders 3. Homology of offender groups offenders who commit like crimes have like background characteristics GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SERIAL KILLERS CIA approach largely about identifying kinds of offenders

6 Robert Ressler and John Douglas - findings on the general characteristics of the serial killers: o 1. Most are single white males. Exceptions to the rule.. Never been culture where women are killing more then men.. o 2. They tend to be smart, with a mean IQ of bright normal. Bright normal BTK example short fat bearded man late 30s named himself BTK bind torture kill.. MO stalk victims for a while, find out when alone, break in, ambush, bind them and torture them, sexual but not rape send notes to police.. quit for a while and then send notes to police again.. personals in the paper asked police if they can trace disks they said no and then sent disk and