Dangerous Minds Criminal Profiling

Criminal profiling, which is as well referred to as Criminal Investigative Analysis is a field that has drawn admiration since its commencement during the early 1800’s. Since then, many developments have occurred both in research as well as investigative utilization of criminal profiling, empirical assessment of the efficacy of this technique. Currently, criminal profilers are glorified in different movies or TV shows as Delphic hunters of truth through the use of exceptional investigation dexterities to bust criminals. Nevertheless, criminal profiling is not at all times accurate as the profiler is prone to making mistakes during in some cases. This is the reason explaining why generalization is of cases is wrong. Criminal profiling is the procedure of identifying personal characteristics, behavioral tendencies, as well as demographic variables of a criminal on the basis of the characteristics of the crime. This is an approach that is utilized by the FBI in most of their investigations.

Kocsis (2013) asserts that criminal profiling has increasingly grown in its utilization by law enforcement agencies over the last four decades. This is due research endeavors that have been input into its development. In his journal, he looks into the original empirical experiments in this field so far and latest omnibus analyzes that are aimed at evaluating accuracy in criminal profiles. Criminal profiling is an investigative tool that most security agencies use during their activities of hunting down criminals. The objective of this approach is to assist the investigators to make a prediction as well as identify the characteristics that are possessed by a criminal(s) who is not yet known. It only serves a sole purpose of making it possible for investigators to bring together and develop the appropriate depiction of the offender involved. Criminal investigative analysis may as well employ geographical profiling to find out the location of the criminal.

The procedures employed by investigators during the profiling of the offenders must be both reliable and accurate. For example, the major importance is to facilitate the acquisition of high knowledge regarding a criminal offender by the law enforcement agencies. This is normally attained based on social and psychological characteristics of the offender so as to comprehend the situations of the offense that has been committed. The procedures are as well imperative in offering a perfect psychological assessment of a criminal offender. According to Goodwill (2013), a lot of research has been carried out in the field of investigative psychology by use of multidimensional scaling methods for purposes that range from conceptual thematic investigation, to dominant theme classification, to prediction of offenders behaviors.

There are diverse methods that are utilized in predicting the location of serial offenders that are based on the spatial distribution of the crimes they commit. Serial killers are described as offenders who murder at least three people in a period (Dogra et al., 2012). In the modern society, criminal profiling is a very vital step in investigative science. During the 19th century, criminology mainly revolved around studying the cues of the criminals’. This was later followed by the assessing of crime that has been committed by a criminal offender, including issues such as frequency studies and other facets that connects a criminal with the occurrence that he/she took part in. This is very imperative in learning the psychology of criminal offenders.

According to Kocsis (2013), criminal profiling majors on the scene of the crime since the criminals’ organization or disorganization can be accurately determined. There are criminals who tend to plan their activities in advance prior to executing them. An organized criminal will mainly plan ahead and put everything in a strategic position, waiting to strike at the appropriate moment. He/she never takes any chances and is smart as they tend to hide whatever possible evidence that may lead the detectives back to them. Disorganized criminals have a tendency of leaving behind trails of proof at the scenes of crime, hence easing the procedure of profiling them. It is easy to gather information relating to a disorganized criminal due to the spontaneous criminal offenses they commit.

Canter, Hammond, Youngs & Juszczak, (2013) utilizes 63 serial burglars from the UK to examine the ideographic models of the behaviors of criminals with the aim of determining the relative accuracy during the prediction of the offender’s location. The most fundamental facets of the geographical activities of the offenders that facilitate deductions of their likely location are derived from the place where they commit their crimes. These fundamental aspects include propinquity and morphology. Propinquity refers to the inclination for the probability of the locations of crime to increasingly decrease as the distance from the home of the offender increases that is frequently characterized as a cumulative decay function. On the other hand, morphology refers to the propensity for the crimes to be distributed near the location of the offender.

Mathematical models are utilized in the comprehension of how offenders make choices regarding the location of their criminal activities by modeling criminal spatial activity. These mathematical models are as a result, distinct hypotheses relating to the form that the location of the offenders, and which explain criminal actions. The ideographic models for profiling offenders geographically are as a result significant. Goodwill et al. (2013) try to improve the faceted multidimensional scaling process that is mostly utilized in most investigative psychology research. They use recent research relating to a street robbery on Goodwill and his colleagues to illustrate the efficacy of the facet scale method during the profiling of offenders. The four facet scale method themes that are common in street robbery include Con, Confrontation, Blitz, as well as Snatch. These themes were identified in the research by crossing two causal axial facets, that is, the level of violence of the offenders, and the interaction of the offender with the victim(s) during street robbery. A comparison was made between the facet scale methods that were using the axial facet scores of the offenders to the initial count, comparative and centroid classification techniques while making a prediction of the history of the criminal offender. The results showed that using logistic regression as well as receiver operating features analyses, it was found out that the axial facet scale method was significantly outperforming the dominating classification theme that was qualitatively themed, which normally made use of both angular and radial facets for the interpretation of the FMDS.

Trojan & Salfati (2011) makes an examination of the crime scene behaviors of both single as well as serial homicide offenders so as to make an identification of the patterns which may be compared to the themes in their (criminals) initial offending. They found out that the crime scene actions took place ranging from hostile to cognitive activities with serial offenders being more concentrated in the latter part of this range. Nevertheless, it was as well found out that only a small proportion of the serial homicide offenders committed equally themed initial offenses as well as homicide behaviors, raising the question relating to the behavioral steadiness that underlies the profiling of the offenders.

Therefore, criminal profiling deals with the compiling as well as development of an offenders’ perfect psychological profile. Most of the offenders’ information can be found at the scene of the crime, which provides approximately all the data that is collected. As a result, the task of forensic experts is to study the minds of criminal offenders by means of psychology. They are therefore able to have a sketch of the psychological condition of the offender. The information from the crime scene can help the profiler in gaining a wealth of knowledge regarding the mental status of the criminal. This is a very imperative aspect in many homicide cases since the motive of taking such an action is identified efficiently. As a result, criminal profiling is a very significant aspect that whose efficiency is evident in cases like rape, and homicide murders.

In conclusion, profiling as an extra tool for criminal investigations is significant, particularly in serial offenses like homicides. Research on criminal profiling has been imperative in the growth of this field as well as the accuracy and efficacy of the results obtained. The future of profiling criminals lays on continuous research on the psychology of criminals. It is therefore important for further research be carried out in this field so as to make criminal profiling a simple and accurate procedure.