Offender profiling

Evidence of the deficiencies of this practice has been repeatedly removed in large quantity on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Offender profiling

Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is a behavioral and investigative tool that is intended to help investigators to profile unknown criminal subjects or offenders. Offender profiling is also known as criminal profiling, criminal personality profiling, criminological profiling, behavioral profiling or criminal investigative analysis. Wikipedia:Geographic profiling is another method to profile an offender. Television shows such as Wikipedia:Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Profiler in the 1990s, the 2005 television series Wikipedia:Criminal Minds, the 2011 television series Wikipedia:Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, and the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs have lent many names to what the FBI calls "criminal investigative analysis."

Holmes and Holmes (2008) outline the three main goals of criminal profiling:

• The first is to provide law enforcement with a social and psychological assessment of the offender;
• The second goal is to provide law enforcement with a “psychological evaluation of belongings found in the possession of the offender” (p. 10);
• The third goal is to give suggestions and strategies for the interviewing process.

In modern Wikipedia:criminology, offender profiling is generally considered the "third wave" of investigative science:

• the first wave was the study of clues, pioneered by Wikipedia:Scotland Yard in the 19th century;
• the second wave was the study of crime itself (frequency studies and the like);
• this third wave is the study of the psyche of the criminal.

There is little empirical evidence that profiling is effective. It mostly rests on 'Wikipedia:common sense' justifications.

Definitions

Offender profiling is a method of identifying the perpetrator of a Wikipedia:crime based on an analysis of the nature of the offense and the manner in which it was committed. Various aspects of the criminal's personality makeup are determined from his or her choices before, during, and after the crime. This information is combined with other relevant details and Wikipedia:physical evidence, and then compared with the characteristics of known personality types and mental abnormalities to develop a practical working description of the offender.

Psychological profiling may be described as a method of suspect identification which seeks to identify a person's mental, emotional, and personality characteristics (as manifested in things done or left at the crime scene). This was used in the investigation of the serial murders committed by Wikipedia:Ted Bundy. Dr. Richard B. Jarvis, a psychiatrist with expertise on the criminal mind, predicted the age range of Bundy, his sexual psychopathy, and his above average intellect.

Another good example and more depth of how psychological profiling could be done is on the investigation on Wikipedia:Gary Leon Ridgway, also known as the Wikipedia:Green River Killer. An investigator named Wikipedia:John E. Douglas who worked for the FBI provided a twelve-page profile. Briefly, it stated these points:

• Probably a white male who had a dysfunctional relationship with women.
• Organized since he tried to hide the bodies and appeared to spend some time at the river
• Cunning in using rocks to weigh the victims down in the water to conceal them.
• Very mobile with a vehicle.
• Going to kill again.
• Like other serial killers, he would be prone to contacting police wanting to help in the investigations.

However, the profile created for Ridgway also revealed characteristics that did not apply to him, such as being an outdoorsman, and being incapable of closeness to other people Ridgway was not an outdoorsman, but frequented the Green River with one of his wives, and also had a very close relationship with his last wife, which contradicted the point in the profile of being incapable of closeness.

One type of criminal profiling is referred to as linkage analysis. Gerard N. Labuschagne (2006) defines linkage analysis as “a form of behavioral analysis that is used to determine the possibility of a series of crimes as having been committed by one offender.” Gathering many aspects of the offender’s crime pattern such as modus operandi, ritual or fantasy-based behaviors exhibited, and the signature of the offender help to establish a basis for a linkage analysis. An offender’s modus operandi is his or her habits or tendencies during the killing of the victim. An offender’s signature is the unique similarities in each of his or her kills. Mainly, linkage analysis is used when physical evidence, such as DNA, cannot be collected.

Labuschagne states that in gathering and incorporating these aspects of the offender’s crime pattern, investigators must engage in five assessment procedures: (1) obtaining data from multiple sources; (2) reviewing the data and identifying significant features of each crime across the series; (3) classifying the significant features as either MO and/or ritualistic; (4) comparing the combination of MO and ritual/fantasy-based features across the series to determine if a signature exists; and (5) compiling a written report highlighting the findings.

History

The origins of profiling can be traced back to as early as the Wikipedia:Middle Ages, with the inquisitors trying to “profile” heretics. Wikipedia:Jacob Fries, Wikipedia:Cesare Lombroso, Wikipedia:Alphonse Bertillon, Wikipedia:Hans Gross and several others realized the potential of profiling in the 19th century although their research is generally considered to be prejudiced, reflecting the biases of their time. A version of profiling is thought to have been used in the 1940s, when investigations relied on mental health professionals to create a profile of an offender in order to aid the police investigation. Soon after, as discussed below, James Brussel was called upon to analyze the information on the Mad Bomber in New York City, and he created an accurate profile of the offender. This caught the attention of the FBI, who then worked to develop a technique for profiling, based on the process used by Brussel.

Notable profilers

Thomas Bond

During the 1880s, Thomas Bond, a medical doctor, tried to profile the personality of Wikipedia:Jack the Ripper. Bond, a Wikipedia:police Wikipedia:surgeon, assisted in the Wikipedia:autopsy of Mary Kelly. In his notes, dated November 10, 1888, he mentioned the sexual nature of the murders coupled with elements of apparent Wikipedia:misogyny and rage. Dr. Bond also tried to reconstruct the murder and interpret the behavior pattern of the offender: soon he came up with a profile or signature personality traits of the offender to assist police investigation. The profile said that five murders of seven in the area at the time the report was written had been committed by one person alone who was physically strong, composed, and daring. The unknown offender would be quiet and harmless in appearance, possibly middle-aged, and neatly attired, probably wearing a cloak to hide the bloody effects of his attacks out in the open. He would be a loner, without a real occupation, eccentric, and mentally unstable. He might even suffer from a condition called Wikipedia:Satyriasis, a sexual deviancy that is today referred to as Wikipedia:hypersexuality or Wikipedia:promiscuity. Bond also mentioned that he believed the offender had no anatomical knowledge and could not be a surgeon or Wikipedia:butcher. Moreover, Dr. Bond later concluded that the same offender was responsible for the murder of Wikipedia:Alice McKenzie.

Walter C. Langer

In 1943, Wikipedia:William J. Donovan, chief of the US Wikipedia:Office of Strategic Services (OSS), asked Dr. Wikipedia:Walter C. Langer, a Wikipedia:psychoanalyst based in Wikipedia:Boston, to develop a “profile” of Adolf Hitler Wikipedia:Adolf Hitler. What the OSS wanted was a behavioral and psychological analysis for the construction of strategic plans, given various options.

Dr. Langer used speeches, Hitler's book Wikipedia:Mein Kampf, interviews with people who had known Hitler and some four hundred published works to complete his wartime report, which was eventually declassified by OSS and published by Langer (along with certain collateral material) as Wikipedia:The Mind of Adolf Hitler in 1972. This work contains a profile of possible behavioural traits of Hitler, and his possible reactions to the idea of Germany losing Wikipedia:World War II. Dr. Langer’s profile noted that Hitler was meticulous, conventional, and prudish about his appearance and body. He was robust and viewed himself as a Wikipedia:standard-bearer and trendsetter. He had manic phases, yet took little Wikipedia:exercise. Due to a lack of evidence, Langer believed that Hitler was in reasonably good health, so it was unlikely he would die from natural causes, but he was deteriorating mentally. He would not try to escape to a neutral country, nor would he (in Langer's opinion) allow himself to be captured by the Allies. Hitler always walked diagonally from one corner to another when crossing a room, and he whistled a marching tune. He feared Wikipedia:syphilis and germs.

Langer's profile also pointed out Hitler's Wikipedia:oedipal complex, with the effect being the need to prove his manhood to his mother, and his Wikipedia:masochistic Wikipedia:coprolagnia and Wikipedia:urolagnia. He detested the learned and the privileged, but enjoyed classical music, Wikipedia:vaudeville, and Wikipedia:Richard Wagner's Wikipedia:opera. He showed strong streaks of sadism and liked Wikipedia:circus acts that were risky and dangerous. He tended to speak in long monologues rather than have conversations. He had difficulty establishing close relationships with anyone. Since he appeared to be delusional, it was possible that his psychological structures would collapse in the face of imminent defeat. The most likely scenario was that he would commit suicide, although there was a possibility that he would order a henchman to perform Wikipedia:euthanasia.

James A. Brussel

Between 1940 and 1956, a serial bomber terrorized New York City Wikipedia:New York City by planting bombs in public places including Wikipedia:movie theaters, Wikipedia:phone booths, Wikipedia:Radio City Music Hall, Wikipedia:Grand Central Terminal, and Pennsylvania Station. In 1956, the frustrated police requested a profile from Wikipedia:Greenwich Village Wikipedia:psychiatrist James A. Brussel, who was New York State's assistant commissioner of Wikipedia:mental hygiene. Dr. Brussel studied photographs of the crime scenes and analyzed the so called “mad bomber’s” mail to the press. Soon he came up with a detailed description of the offender. In his profile, Dr. Brussel suggested that the unknown offender would be a heavy middle-aged man who was unmarried, but perhaps living with a sibling. Moreover, the offender would be a skilled Wikipedia:mechanic from Wikipedia:Connecticut, who was a Wikipedia:Roman Catholic Wikipedia:immigrant and, while having an obsessional love for his mother, would harbour a hatred for his father. Brussel noted that the offender had a personal vendetta against Wikipedia:Consolidated Edison, the city’s power company; the first bomb targeted its 67th Street headquarters. Dr. Brussel also mentioned to the police that, upon the offender's discovery, the “chances are he will be wearing a double-breasted suit. Buttoned.”

From his profile, it was obvious to the police that the mysterious bomber would be a disgruntled current or unhappy former employee of Con Ed. The profile helped police to track down Wikipedia:George Metesky in Wikipedia:Waterbury, Connecticut; he had worked for Con Ed in the 1930s. He was arrested in January 1957 and confessed immediately. The police found Brussel’s profile most accurate when they met the heavy, single, Catholic, and foreign-born Metesky. When the police told him to get dressed, he went to his bedroom and returned wearing a double-breasted suit, fully buttoned, just as Dr. Brussel had predicted. However, Wikipedia:Malcolm Gladwell has written that offender profiling is not a science at all, but is couched in such ambiguous language that it can support almost any interpretation; and about Brussel says:

Brussel did not really understand the mind of the Mad Bomber. He seems to have understood only that, if you make a great number of predictions, the ones that were wrong will soon be forgotten, and the ones that turn out to be true will make you famous. The Hedunit is not a triumph of forensic analysis. It’s a party trick.

Dr. Brussel assisted New York City police from 1957 to 1972 and profiled many crimes, including murder. Dr. Brussel also worked with other investigative agencies. Brussel’s profile led the Boston Police to the apprehension of Wikipedia:Albert DeSalvo, the notorious serial sex murderer known as the Wikipedia:Boston Strangler. The media dubbed Dr. Brussel as “Wikipedia:Sherlock Holmes of the Couch”.

See: Casebook of a Crime Psychiatrist by James A. Brussel, M.D., Bernard Geis Associates, 1968, Classic, ISBN 0-583-11804-6

Howard Teten

Howard D. Teten, a veteran police officer from California, joined the FBI in 1962. He was appointed as an instructor in applied criminology at the old National Police Academy in Washington, D.C. Teten was greatly interested in the application of offender profiling, and had included some of the ideas in his applied criminology course. He met Dr. Brussel and exchanged investigative ideas and psychological strategies in profiling crimes. Although Teten disagreed with Dr. Brussel's Wikipedia:Freudian interpretations, he accepted other tenets of his investigative analysis.

In 1972 the FBI’s Wikipedia:Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico was formed, with Teten joining FBI Instructor Patrick J. Mullany's team. Teten and Mullany designed a method for analyzing unknown offenders in unsolved cases. The idea was to look at the behavioral manifestations at a crime scene for evidence of Wikipedia:mental disorders and other personality traits, thus aiding the detectives' Wikipedia:deductive reasoning. Their ideas on offender profiling were tested when a seven-year-old girl was abducted from a Wikipedia:Rocky Mountains campsite in Wikipedia:Montana in June 1973. The girl was abducted from a tent in the early hours; the offender overpowered her before she could alert her parents, who were sleeping nearby. When an intensive search for the missing child failed, the case was referred to the FBI.

Teten, Mullany and Col. Robert K. Ressler employed their criminal investigative analysis technique to track down the unknown offender. Their profile declared that the abductor was most likely a young, white, male, homicidal Peeping Tom; a sex killer who mutilates his victim after death, who sometimes takes body parts as souvenirs. Later, the profile led to the arrest of Wikipedia:David Meirhofer, a local 23-year-old single man who was also a suspect in another murder case. The search of his house unearthed “souvenirs”—body parts taken from both victims. Meirhofer was the first Wikipedia:serial killer to be caught with the aid of the FBI's new investigative technique, called offender profiling or criminal investigative analysis. A decade later, the technique became a more sophisticated and systematic profiling tool known as the Wikipedia:Criminal Investigative Analysis Program (CIAP).

Richard Walter and Bob Keppel

In 1974, homicide detective Wikipedia:Robert D. Keppel used new methods of psychological profiling to investigate notorious serial killers Wikipedia:Ted Bundy and the Wikipedia:Green River Killer. He combined his field expertise with criminal psychologist Wikipedia:Richard Walter. As a psychologist in Michigan's notorious prison system, Walter had interviewed over two thousand murderers, sex-offenders and serial killers. Walter began to see common threads among offenders and was able to group all killings and sex crimes into four distinct "subtypes": power-assertive, power-reassurance, anger-retaliatory, and anger-excitation or sadism. He was the first to develop a matrix using suspect pre-crime, crime and post-crime behaviors as a tool for investigation. Walter later co-founded the Wikipedia:Vidocq society, an exclusive organization of forensic professionals who solve cold cases for law enforcement agencies, worldwide. Together, Keppel and Walter created the HITS (Hunter Integrated Telemetry System) database, which lists characteristics of violent crimes so that common threads can be investigated. They also published a leading scholarly article for the Wikipedia:FBI and violent crime investigators all over the world: "Profiling Killers: A Revised Classification Model for Understanding Sexual Murder".

John Douglas and Robert Ressler

In 1978, after Howard Teten left the Behavioral Science Unit, John Douglas and Wikipedia:Robert Ressler became pillars of offender profiling in the FBI. They spent much time studying convicted sex murderers and interviewing them, creating organized and disorganized typology, which is still in use today.

Organized crimes are premeditated and carefully planned. These characteristics suggest that the perpetrator may display psychopathic tendencies, because this type of person remains in touch with reality, under stress. Little evidence is found at the scenes of this type of offender, they are antisocial but understand right from wrong, but have a shallow affect; thus not showing remorse. Disorganized crimes are unplanned, impulsive acts of violence. This individual uses weapons available at the scene, like blunt force objects for example. They leave many forms of evidence, like fingerprints and blood. Being out of touch with reality and social norms, these offenders are clinically psychotic. Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis, by Brent Turvey, M.S. San Diego, Academic Press, 1999.

Ressler was also responsible for the founding of the National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) and at least partially responsible for the establishment of VICAP. Their studies provide more information on the behavioral patterns, traits and characteristics of criminals which can then be added to the offender profiling program.

David Canter

In 1986, police forces across the south of Wikipedia:England were struggling to find the Railway Rapist who was then renamed the Railway Killer after murdering a victim for the first time. Dr. Wikipedia:David Canter, a Wikipedia:psychologist and criminologist then from Wikipedia:Surrey University, was invited to compose British crime's first offender profile. When John Duffy was later arrested, charged and convicted, it turned out 13 of Canter's 17 proclamations about the perpetrator were accurate. Profiling became commonplace in large-scale police searches afterwards.

Paul Britton

Paul Briton claims to have been involved with offender profiling in England as early as 1984, being first involved in the investigation of the murder of Caroline Osbourne. He has since assisted on a wide variety of cases, from the murder of Jamie Bulger to the abduction of Abbie Humphries from her hospital cot. He has continued to work with the police, on an informal basis since then, and still assists investigations on occasion. He is married with two children, and has written two books, The Jigsaw Man, (1997, Corgi books) and Picking Up the Pieces, also Corgi.

Chris Hatcher

Dr. Chris Hatcher, Wikipedia:forensic psychologist, testified as an Wikipedia:expert witness in the case, People v. Gregory Scott Smith in which he characterized the defendant as a "sadistic pedophile" during the sentencing phase of a death penalty case. He described the common characteristics of persons who commit abductions similar to this case, explaining that they are living out a fantasy regarding the rape and molestation of children, and that the components of the fantasy include "forcible sodomy, strangulation, and disfigurement of the victim’s body", all acts committed by Smith. This testimony was controversial because Dr. Hatcher did not evaluate or interview the defendant but came to his conclusions solely on "profile evidence". Also, Dr. Hatcher's testimony was characterized as an improper attempt by the prosecution to sway the jury toward a death sentence on the grounds of extreme mental illness, contrary to law and precedent.

Phases of profiling

According to Gregg O. McCrary, the basic premise is that behavior reflects personality. In a homicide case, for example, FBI profilers try to collect the personality of the offender through questions about his or her behavior at four phases:

1. Antecedent: What fantasy or plan, or both, did the murderer have in place before the act? What triggered the murderer to act some days and not others?
2. Method and manner: What type of victim or victims did the murderer select? What was the method and manner of murder: shooting, stabbing, strangulation or something else?
3. Body disposal: Did the murder and body disposal take place all at one scene, or multiple scenes?
4. Post-offense behavior: Is the murderer trying to inject himself into the investigation by reacting to media reports or contacting investigators?

A Wikipedia:sexual crime is analyzed in much the same way (bearing in mind that homicide is sometimes a sexual crime), with the additional information that comes from a living victim. Professor David Canter is the pioneer of scientific offender profiling, developing the discipline of Investigative Psychology as a response to his dissatisfaction with the scientific bases for this activity. The IAIP of which Canter is President now seeks to set professional guidelines for practice and research in this area.

Another phase of criminal profiling (crime scene investigation) is case linkage. According to Brent E. Turvey, case linkage or linking analysis refers to the process of determining whether or not there are discrete connections between two or more previously unrelated cases through crime scene analysis. It involves establishing and comparing the physical evidence, Wikipedia:victimology, crime scene characteristics, Wikipedia:modus operandi (MO)-organized or disorganized typologies-, and signature behaviors between each of the cases under review. It has two purposes:

1. To assist law enforcement with the application of its finite resources by helping to establish where to apply investigative efforts and
2. To assist the court in determining whether or not there is sufficient behavioral evidence to suggest a common scheme or plan in order to address forensic issues, such as whether similar crimes may be tried together or whether other crimes may be brought in as evidence.

With respect to behavioral evidence, case linkage efforts have most typically hinged on two concepts:

1. MO, modus operandi
2. Signature

Controversies

Although offender profiling has earned much public attention, it is still not free from controversies. Some experts in law enforcement and criminal psychology have questioned its scientific validity. Many of the profilers and the other FBI agents were not psychologists, and some researchers who looked at their work found methodological flaws.

Investigators may find an early suspect who appears to fit the profile, and ignore or foreclose investigating other leads. For example, Wikipedia:Richard Jewell was extensively investigated (and attacked in the media) following the Wikipedia:Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Wikipedia:Atlanta. This not only caused great distress to Jewell, but delayed identifying the true culprit, Wikipedia:Eric Robert Rudolph. Focusing on Jewell is a false positive. The added cost of the false positive on Jewell was that FBI and local police gave up the search for other suspects for quite a while. The converse of the false positive is the false negative, when investigators are blinded by an erroneous aspect of a profile, and clear a suspect who is actually guilty.

The purported benefit is faster, cheaper less error prone method of investigation. For that reason, profiling must decrease either Type I error of falsely identifying an innocent man, i.e. Richard Jewell a real hero at the 1996 Atlanta Games, thereby ignoring any attempt to find the real killer, Eric Robert Rudolph, who actually did the bombing. Focusing on Jewell is a false positive. The added cost of the false positive on Jewell was that FBI and local police gave up the search for other suspects for quite a while. The converse of the false positive is the false negative when the police clear a suspect who is really guilty.

Use of profiling has led law enforcement to ignore or foreclose investigating other leads as the 2001 anthrax case reveals. Initially the profile used was that of a government scientist; recently it has been reported that the anthrax spores used in the attacks of October 2001 were not weaponized, so the resources spent on defaming scientist Mark Hatfield were wasted.

Criminals who engage in the calculating use of violence and threats of violence to trigger emotional responses such as humiliation, fear, and terror do so to coerce behavior such as obedience and submission. However, Eric Robert Rudolph exhibited traits that set him apart from typical criminals, even political terrorists, and demonstrated behavior representative of criminal sexual sadists as sex and punishment were central themes of his crimes with the focus "on domination, control, humiliation, pain, injury, and violence, or a combination of these themes, as a means to elicit suffering."

The personal records of criminal sexual sadists frequently involve complex, elaborate, detailed scenarios that include specific methods of capture, control, locations, and well-planned sequence of acts which often encompass multiple victims.

Former US Army explosives expert, Eric Robert Rudolph released an 11-page manifesto which detailed his accounts of bombings that killed two people and injured more than 120 others. "Among the information: that the Olympic bombing was intended to be part of a week-long campaign of explosions aimed at shutting down the games and embarrassing the US government."

Another noted example of the failure of profiling is with the Wikipedia:Beltway sniper attacks, where the killer was thought to most likely be a middle-aged white male—but in fact the crimes were perpetrated by two black males, one of whom was only 17 years old.

The Wikipedia:Peggy Hettrick murder case is controversial because it is the only documented case of an individual having been convicted due to a reversed engineered false profile and the erroneous testimony of the psychologist who developed the profile. In 1999, a jury convicted Timothy Masters of the 1987 killing of Peggy Hettrick. Masters spent over 9 years in a Colorado prison before his release on January 22, 2008. Timothy Masters was arrested and convicted of sexual murder based on the testimony of a forensic psychologist while the opinion of a Robert R. “Roy” Hazelwood, a retired FBI criminal investigative analyst was ignored. The forensic psychologist developed a psychological profile of a killer using narrative and drawings made by Masters to conclude that Masters’ supposed fantasy was the motive and behavioral preparation for the sexual murder, regardless of the fact that the forensic psychologist knew that there was no direct or physical evidence linking Masters to the crime. The cautionary lesson in the Masters case is what happens when forensic psychologists advance opinions about criminal matters based on the extrapolation of academic research on psychological concepts involving sexual homicide cases and reject the opinions of professional criminal profilers who incorporate law enforcement analysis coupled with criminal evidentiary considerations into their work.

Some experts in Wikipedia:criminal psychology such as Brent Turvey, as quoted by journalist Wikipedia:Malcolm Gladwell in Wikipedia:The New Yorker have questioned its scientific validity. Many profilers and FBI agents are not psychologists, and some researchers who looked at their work found methodological flaws. However, if these criticisms are seen as Wikipedia:heuristic, rather than destructive, the Gladwell article suggests otherwise.

Three psychologists from the Universities of Liverpool and Hull are questioning the basic presumption that you can draw conclusions about a person from a single instance of behaviour under such special circumstances. "The notion that particular configurations of demographic features can be predicted from an assessment of particular configurations of specific behaviors occurring in short-term, highly traumatic situations seems an overly ambitious and unlikely possibility. Thus, until such inferential processes can be reliably verified, such claims should be treated with great caution in investigations and should be entirely excluded from consideration in court."

Active profiling as allowed by the Department of Justice includes covert alteration of the environment to observe the responses of a suspect. Placing agents in proximity to the offender helps to define the psychological or metal state of the offender. A certain pressure tactic for some offenders to assist them leaving the area was Televized in 2002. This can be used to check whether the suspect's behavior fits the profile, but risks being labeled as police harassment or Wikipedia:entrapment.

Popular use of the term criminal profiler has led to the proliferation of many self-described profilers offering their purported expert opinions on cable news shows in response to incidents capturing national attention in the United States. Such individuals usually have degrees in criminal justice or psychology but lack any law enforcement experience.

Profiling in popular culture

Several films focus on profilers investigating on criminal cases. For example:

• The Sniper
• Manhunter
• The Silence of the Lambs
• Copycat
• Wikipedia:Suspect Zero
• Wikipedia:Mindhunters
• Wikipedia:Citizen X
• Wikipedia:Gothika
• Wikipedia:Murder By Numbers
• Taking Lives
• Wikipedia:The Poughkeepsie Tapes

Several television shows also focus on or feature profilers:

• Wikipedia:Det. Robert Goren (played by Wikipedia:Vincent D'Onofrio) of Wikipedia:Law & Order: Criminal Intent is a criminal profiler. His mentor Dr. Declan Gage, played by John Glover, is known as one of the first modern-day criminal profilers.
• Wikipedia:Special Agent Wikipedia:Caitlin Todd and M.E. Wikipedia:Donald "Ducky" Mallard from NCIS.
• Wikipedia:Special Agent Wikipedia:Megan Reeves of Wikipedia:Numb3rs played by Wikipedia:Diane Farr is a criminal profiler who chooses which suspects are suitable and which are not.
• The Wikipedia:Kay Scarpetta book series (written by Wikipedia:Patricia Cornwell) also features Benson Wesley, an FBI Criminal Profiler based in Wikipedia:Quantico, Virginia. He is featured in many of the books and displays the disciplines and skills of a criminal profiler.
• The UK television series Wikipedia:Wire in the Blood features clinical psychologist Wikipedia:Dr. Tony Hill played by Wikipedia:Robson Green who profiles serial killers.
• The UK television series Cracker focuses on a psychologist who aids police in forming profiles and interrogating suspects.
• Profiler, an Wikipedia:NBC TV series, focused on a profiler whose insights manifested themselves in visions.
• Wikipedia:Criminal Minds, a Wikipedia:CBS TV series, fictionally dramatizes the profiling work of a team of agents from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico (The BAU).
• Millennium, a TV series centered around Wikipedia:Frank Black (Wikipedia:Lance Henriksen) an ex-FBI criminal profiler who consulted with the FBI for a group called the Millennium group.
• In season 2 of Dexter, Special Agent Frank Lundy, played by Wikipedia:Keith Carradine, applies his expert profiling skill to the hunt for the "Bay Harbor Butcher".
• In the South Korean drama IRIS, Seung Hee Choi, played by Wikipedia:Kim Tae Hee is a profiler for the NSS or National Security Service.
• The X-files uses aspects of offender profiling to solve supernatural crimes.

In Video Game culture:

• Wikipedia:Heavy Rain: One of the four playable characters is FBI agent, Norman Jayden. He is responsible for developing a profile for the main antagonist in the game, the Origami Killer.
• Wikipedia:Deadly Premonition: The main character, Francis York Morgan, is an FBI Special Agent whose profiling specialty involves killers of young women.

Active Profiling & Recent Developments in Profiling

Active Profiling, as allowed by the Department of Justice includes covert alteration of the environment to observe the responses of a suspect in order to see whether the suspect's behavior fits the profile. This method will either confirm a suspect’s guilt or eliminate a suspect that fits the profile. This the latest form of profiling and requires further explanation. Initially designed for cold case homicide investigations but is now used for various crimes. A secret division within the homicide division is created where people remain anonymous, with false names, with enormous resources at their disposal and are able to create a fictitious setting or mock play to trap a suspect. The police method in question was developed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (‘RCMP’) in Vancouver, Canada in the early 1990s and rapidly spread to other countries. Police have applied, unsuccessfully to the courts for orders suppressing the publication of these tactics.

The Canadian Model, centres on undercover police posing as or acting out fictitious scenarios and role playing, such as the creation of a pretend gang where all the gang members and gang Boss, are undercover detectives, except the suspect . The act plays out, winning the confidence of the suspect, and, over time, teasing “tricking” a confession out of him by showing him fake DNA results or the like. They go further than you might imagine. Assaults and kidnappings are staged, and shootings sometimes faked, to win a target's confidence. Luxury vehicles and jet aircraft may be engaged in a bid to woo a suspect. Alcohol is considered an important prop. Undercover officers have admitted to "drink and drive," to maintain their criminal persona . The use of drugs and prostitution is not mentioned but left to ones imagination. This method allows detectives to masquerade and to misrepresent themselves as anybody and in any profession, including but not limited to Crooks, Nurses, Clerks at the Supreme Court, McDonalds Employees and Pharmacists accessing and dispensing medication to their target. To prime a suspect, depressant medication is often secretly administered and vehicle radio broadcasts are altered and is used as a suggestive technique.

Example 1: Mock Gang: Mentuck, in the eyes of the cops was guilty of murder, but the jury did not convict him initially, making him an ideal target for the gang & crime Boss scenario. Acting as a member of a criminal network, an RCMP constable recruited Mr. Mentuck into a variety of scenarios and tasks. He was asked to help count large sums of money and performed various tasks. He was paid substantial sums of money for completing these tasks and he was offered alcohol. He met with the ‘Crime Boss’ in a hotel room and was told he needed to provide details of his involvement in the death of [the victim] so that arrangements could be made for a [terminally ill person] to confess to the crime; and that he was told he would be assisted in suing the government for wrongful imprisonment and would be allowed to keep a minimum of $85 000 or 10% of the settlement whichever was the larger .He was found guilty. Two years later, a trial judge acquitted Mr. Mentuck. "I conclude that the confession, if not false, was certainly too unreliable for acceptance as an admission of guilt,"

Another Manitoba man convicted of murder following a mock gang style sting may soon be free. Kyle Unger has always maintained a 1991 murder confession he gave to RCMP officers posing as criminals was false. DNA testing concluded a strand of hair found on a murdered teenager did not come from Mr. Unger, as had been believed.

Example 2: Mock Gang: The suspect was told that the boss (cop) could arrange for someone with a terminal illness to confess to her crime, provided she supplied the boss with sufficient details to make the confession credible .

See also

• Wikipedia:Behavioral Analysis Unit
• Wikipedia:FBI method of profiling
• Wikipedia:Forensic profiling
• Wikipedia:Forensic psychology
• Wikipedia:Investigative psychology

External links

• Swiss scientific research site on criminal profiling
• University of Liverpool Forensic Psychology - with articles
• History of Criminal Profiling - with links to other sites
• Offender Profiling: An Introduction to the Sociopsychological Analysis of Violent Crime - PDF available
• Dangerous Minds: Criminal profiling made easy, by Malcolm Gladwell