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.
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