Task 5 of the course PSY3377 Legal Psychology in a Nutshell, followed at Maastricht University. The task is comprehensive and well organized. All research papers are summarized and everything discussed during the tutorials is included. Using my tasks, I got an 8.5 for the final exam :).
LEARNING GOALS:
1. What is profiling, what types of profiling are there, and what are the pros and cons for profiling?
Offender profile: a technique to determine an offender’s likely characteristics by analysing the way in
which he/she committed a particular crime, thus helping the police to identify the perpetrator.
- Criminal profiling is used as expert evidence in criminal trials
o Overall purpose: to identify an unknown offender’s significant personality &
demographic characteristics through an analysis of their crimes
- Most forms of offender profiling make general predictions about offenders from their crime
scene behaviours, assume that most offenders’ behaviours are affected in predictable ways &
suggest that offenders’ behaviours remain stable in the of different environmental influences
o Profiling is not an individuating exercise; rather, it aims to discern the type of person
likely to have committed the particular crime
- Assumption of primary dispositional traits: they are stable & general; they determine a
person’s inclination to act consistently in a particular & stable way across variety of situations
o In the case of profiling, these traits are inferred from crime scene actions
For example, if a crime is particularly violent, it may be concluded that the
offender is particularly aggressive. Similarly, aggressive offenders would be
expected to commit any given crime in a particularly violent way
Thus, traits or both inferred from & explained by behaviour
o The wide held belief: the same behavioural dispositions that determine the style of
crime scene behaviour of the offender are reflected in more general, non-offence
behaviour patterns in the individual’s general life
- 5 steps that lead to profiling inferences :
o Assess the type of criminal act with reference to individuals who have committed
similar acts previously
o Thoroughly analyse the crime scene
o Scrutinize the background of the victim as well as any possible suspects
o Establish the likely motivations of all parties involved
o Generate a description of the perpetrator from the characteristics supposedly
connected with such an individual’s “psychological make-up”
Types of profiling methodologies:
- The FBI has developed a law enforcement approach to profiling. The resulting Crime
Classification Manual, proposing a taxonomy of violent offences and psychological profiles of
the likely offenders, is the text of reference summing up the research outcomes and used by
FBI profilers both for training and operational purposes
o Of particular significance to this typology is the fundamental dichotomy between
organised & disorganised offenders, and what are described as corresponding
personality characteristics
- Investigative Psychology model: investigative inferences about an offender is based on
behaviour at the crime scene ought to be tested and supported by empirical evidence as to
the prevalence of a particular pattern
o A fundamentally nomothetic methodology: a methodology that relates to the general
rather than the individual; relies on the study of groups of offender to predict what
characteristics may be typically inferred
o Essential strength of this approach: its degree of reliability lies with the process
rather than the individual profiler
- Behavioural Evidence Analysis: emphasises reliance on the collection and analysis of forensic
and physical evidence to draw inferences about the offender, and claims to proceed
, deductively to test possible offender characteristics against the actual evidence of a
particular case
o An ideographically approach: focuses on the facts of the individual case and features
of the specific crime and offender
Essentially avoids pitfalls of profiling’s uncertain theoretical bases
2. What can a crime scene tell us about an offender?
Traditional approaches to profiling assume that inferences can be made about the characteristics of
an offender based on the behaviour, or crime scene actions, exhibited during the commission of the
crime. In typology-based profiling, offenders are classified into broad personality types, and
behaviour is attributed to underlying, relatively context-free dispositional constructs within the
offender.
- Thus, two offenders exhibiting similar behaviour will be associated with similar personality
and demographic attributes
- The explanation proposed for this link is that the dispositions or traits that are reflected in an
offender’s criminal behaviour will also be apparent in his/her non-criminal life
The FBI profiler’s organized/disorganized system:
- Serial killers are proposed to fall into one of two categories :
o “Organized” crimes
Crime scenes show evidence of logic & planning
The victim has been hunted and selected, in order to fulfil a specific fantasy
The perpetrator maintains control throughout the offense. He takes his time
with the victim, carefully enacting his fantasies. He is adaptable and mobile.
He almost never leaves a weapon behind. He meticulously conceals the body
o “Disorganized” crimes
The victim isn’t chosen logically. She’s seemingly picked at random and
“blitz-attacked,” not stalked and coerced. The disorganized killer has no idea
of, or interest in, the personalities of his victims. He does not want to know
who they are, and many times takes steps to obliterate their personalities by
quickly knocking them unconscious or covering their faces or otherwise
disfiguring them
Killer might grab a steak knife from the kitchen and leave the knife behind
Crime is so sloppily executed that the victim often has a change to fight back
The crime might take place in a high-risk environment (e.g., broad daylight)
- Each of these styles are proposed to correspond to a personality type :
o Organized killer: intelligent, articulate, feels superior to those around him, fascinated
by the social institution that symbolizes control, drives a policelike vehicle
o Disorganized killer: unattractive, has a poor self-image, often has some kind of
disability, is too strange and withdrawn to be married or have a girlfriend, if he
doesn’t live alone he lives with his parents, has pornography stashed in his closet, his
car is a wreck (if he drives at all)
- But how useful is that profile? Crimes however don’t fall into one camp or the other. It turns
out that they’re almost always a mixture of a few key organized traits & a array of
disorganized traits
o Different offenders can exhibit the same behaviours for completely different reasons
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