Offender, or psychological, profiling is a common theme in dramatic fiction. However, is offender profiling valuable to law enforcement in the real world?

Joe Cooper

BA Combined Arts Year 2

Practical Psychology 4

Tutorial essay – Offender Profiling

23.4.02

Offender, or psychological, profiling is a common theme in dramatic fiction. However, is offender profiling valuable to law enforcement in the real world? There are a number of approaches to profiling crime and criminals. Which (if any) has the most to offer? For what sort of crimes is it most useful? How can profiling develop and who is best equipped to construct profiles?

Offender profiling has been variously regarded as ‘psychological’ profiling, ‘criminal’ profiling or as an of extension personality profiling. The main initial problem when dealing with the subject area of offender profiling is related to drawing boundaries around what constitutes an actual offender profile, an offender profiler, and their respective relationship with the practical application to criminal investigation. Let us look at a few attempts to concisely define the area of offender/criminal profiling:

“...The behaviour exhibited in a crime, or series of crimes, is studied and inferences drawn about the offender” (Copson, 1995: 3)

“Behaviour is exhibited at a crime, or a series of similar crimes, and studying the behaviour allows inferences to be made about the likely offender” (Jackson & Bekerian, 1997: 2)

“…Any process of inferring distinctive personality characteristics of individuals responsible for committing criminal acts” (Turvey, 1999: 437)

“…The inference of offender characteristics from offence characteristics” (Copson et al, 1997: 13)

“…A range of methods…used to develop advice for crime investigators based upon inferences drawn from behavioural characteristics of offenders” (Stevens’ chapter in Jackson & Bekerian, 1997: 77)

We must first notice the striking similarity between the first two quotes, which must be a form of professional plagiarism on the part of Jackson & Bekerian, or at the least drawn from a common source of definition. Interestingly, it is the police detective that gives the notion of developing ‘advice’ (Stevens’ chapter in Jackson & Bekerian, 1997: 77), reminding us that the profiler in this case is not the ultimate authority on the inferences drawn from the evidence. Turvey’s (1999) definition is included because of its American authorship, yet only minor differences to the other four generically British quotes exist.

Our initial look at these definitions of ‘offender profiling’ needs now to move on to the attachment of the question at hand – that of the value and practical implications of employing one or more of the techniques established by individual profilers or schools of thought. As with any review of carefully assembled writings on a subject, many of which directly refer to each other in their construction, care needs to be taken not to dismiss the findings of these pioneers of offender profiling. However, just as important is the admission that the underlying purpose of the area of offender profiling – to apprehend guilty and possibly dangerous criminals – must be central to whatever critical views we have on the subject.

Dramatic fiction, in its relevance to the question at hand, should be considered as a double-edged sword in the hands of the public’s interest in criminal profiling. In one sense it has popularised the image as to the science and sensibilities of profiling, yet has ultimately led most people into thinking the techniques used are in some way foolproof. This infallibility holds despite many much-publicised cases where profiling has been far from useful (see the Britton case in Ognall, 1994: cited in Turvey, 1999: 250), and despite dramatic fiction’s return to the failure character in criminal profiling, such as the forensic psychologist Alex Cross in Patterson’s ‘Along Came a Spider’, who fails to notice it is his partner carrying out the crimes investigated. The legacy of novels-cum-films such as the hugely successful ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ (Harris) and Patterson’s ‘Kiss the Girls’ is such that profiling and profilers are regarded as somewhere between the well-worn stereotypes of the dogged private eye and the deeply intellectual Holmesian detective.

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The history of profiling from an applied criminal prosecution standpoint is well documented in many texts. Turvey (1999) cites Bernard & Vold’s (1986; cited in Turvey, 1999: 3) work on the nineteenth century Italian physician Lombroso, who studied the backgrounds and dispositions of nearly 400 prisoners, reasoning that through this ‘the origins and motivations of criminal behaviour could be better understood and subsequently predicted’ (Turvey, 1999: 3). This culminated in Lombroso’s book ‘The criminal Man’ (1876), In which three major types of criminal were classified, each separate category explaining many traits which point to a particular label. Lombroso’s overriding conclusion was that it was the less-evolved and generically ‘degenerate’ prisoners that were the ‘born criminals’, and therefore the worst offenders. Aside from the many deep psychological and philosophical questions raised by any system of labelling, let alone one where responsibility for our actions is in some way atavistic (and therefore ‘unavoidable’), links to the very well-established area of personality profiling are evident in this look at the history of a scientific approach to criminality. Interestingly, a look at what can be regarded as a historical source, a book on ‘Crime and the Mind’ (Bromberg, 1965), gives a similar account of Lombroso’s work. However, a deeper significance is attached (perhaps a recency effect) to the far-reaching theory of degeneracy implicit in Lombroso’s work, relating the currents of literature and social critical thinking to a realisation of the existence of both evolution and involution (degeneracy) (Bromberg, 1965: 56).

Taking up the point of a general link between the theories on types of criminal and the many personality theories postulated, a look at the Boon chapter of Jackson & Bekerian (1997: 43-61) is beneficial. Dr. Julian Boon, himself a criminal profiler who has dealt with many cases from both a forensic and personality perspective, gives us some idea of the process undertaken in three cases of extortion. The application of the process is very similar to the procedural model put forward by Copson et al (1997 – of which Boon is a collaborative author), and gives us a valid method by which investigation can take place. However, the academic and practical expertise of those who undertake offender profiling is often unique to these few individuals, a disadvantage as these are the only people who can be called any sort of authority ion the area of profiling. Until some form of qualification, arising from a single or select few standardised methods of criminal profiling is developed, the ‘advice’ (Stevens’ chapter in Jackson & Bekerian, 1997: 77) given to police will remain as essentially unsubstantiated material. This is not to say offender profiles are not useful, but that unification needs to be put into action to counter the unhappy image of the advice-giving academic psychologist and the humble uncomprehending police officer.

A number of other methods of offender profiling exist outside the paradigm put forward by Copson et al (1997). A look at the behavioural science unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (typified by the work of Burgess et al, 1987 & 1997: cited in Turvey, 1999: 2) gives us the most obvious link to dramatic fiction’s depiction of criminal profiling. As well as representing the pioneering American work on profiling, the FBI unit continues to deal with thousands of cases a year, all of which result in the ‘end product’ of an offender profile (see . The approach is based on four main stages: data assimilation; crime classification; crime reconstruction; and profile generation. This information is gleaned from in-depth interviews, and mainly concentrates on the serious crimes such as sexually-orientated murder and violence (Jackson & Bekerian, 1997: 4-5).

A European school of thought outside the U.K. also has an influence on the way criminal profiling has developed. A look at the work of the Netherlands-based Jackson, van den Eschof & de Kleuver (Chapter in Jackson & Bekerian, 1997: 107-132) shows up admitted similarities with the FBI method of profiling, but adds practical aspects to its structure. In review of their own methods, they summarise that there is a gulf between the perceived use of an offender profile and its actual bearing on detectives’ decision making. This appears a persistent theme in an overall of offender profiling, that the gap between the production of a profile and its relationship to the direction of the criminal investigation are not closely related.

The most extensive British study of offender profiling techniques – ‘Coals to Newcastle’ (Copson, 1995), shows that offender profilers were generally consulted at an early stage or after the direction of inquiry was established, and that 82.6% of the profilers ‘ advice was regarded as ‘operationally useful’ by the police forces who responded to the questionnaires. Also important in the findings of this study was the prevalence of serious crimes like murder and rape (accounting for 83% of cases between them) in the returned data set. This prevalence of serious crimes could be explained by many variables, not least the previously-discussed popularisation of criminal profiling in popular fiction, where in only the most dramatic cases (i.e. the most serious) are suspected criminals subjected to a psychological profile.

Contrary to findings on this prevalence of serious crime in offender profiling (at least in theory), can be seen in the example of Anne Davies’ (in Jackson & Bekerian, 1997: 191) research emanating from Specific Profile Analysis (SPA), a data-based approach which looks burglary as well as rape; and Boon’s chapter (in Jackson & Bekerian, 1997: 43), which uses extortion as examples of profiling. Further to this, we can perhaps see how one variable as an effect on the distribution of types of cases, from Boon’s statement:

“…The process of operational profiling requires a very significant amount of professional time – at least 40 hours…as a base rate” (Boon chapter in Jackson & Bekerian, 1997: 47)

The variable is the time spent on the case and profiling process, and a complicated relationship exists: the more substantial the rewards of solving a case are, the more time will be put aside for profiling, yet the material rewards (i.e. money) are not a large part – money is replaced by the sheer joy of solving a case. Copson, (1995) shows us that in the 184 cases of profiling he studied, on only 19 occasions were expenses claimed.

The ‘deductive method’ of criminal profiling is best explained by this quote:

“A deductive criminal profile is a set of offender characteristics that are reasoned from the convergence of physical and behavioural evidence patterns within a crime or series of related crimes.” (Turvey, 1999: 28)

The use of deduction is more than a mere throwback to Conan Doyle’s detective’s methods, but a logical step forward from the systematic FBI profiling method. Turvey highlights once again the level of expertise required to carry out profiling by reminding us of the importance of not only the forensic and crime-scene characteristics, but of access to information on the various victims themselves, with a view to looking for patterns in types of victims chosen. With any paradigm comes problems, in this case an inaccurate presupposition of this deductive method is a rationality or order in the criminal mind, and as possessing a logical link to their victims. This is not to say that we should disregard the characteristics of the victims, but rather that by classifying the offenders as a certain ‘type’ of serial attacker, we are ignoring the fact that any offence may be their first offence. The downfalls of developing a typology of criminals with no obvious practical use for investigation can be seen in Hazelwood & Warren (2000), where despite extensive description of ‘ritualistic’ and ‘impulsive’ sex offenders, there is little to help the general investigative method when attempting to identify the perpetrator of a crime. This failure of re-explaining criminal behaviour, rather than putting forward a method by which the person responsible can be apprehended is a generalised problem with many classification systems, and can perhaps be traced back to the labelling systems of early scientific observers such as Lombroso. A look back at the deductive method (i.e. not inductive) described by survey gives insight into the failing of classifying into categories that assume absolutes about a criminal:

Premise: Most known serial murderers are Caucasian.
Premise: Most known serial murderers are male
Premise: Most known serial murderers operate within a comfort zone
Conclusion of deductive reasoning (absolute assertions): The given serial murder will be a male Caucasian operating within a comfort zone.
Conclusion of inductive reasoning with appropriate qualification: It is likely that any given serial murderer will be a male Caucasian operating within a comfort zone. (adapted from Turvey, 1999:15)

It is important to remember that descriptions of the offender and victims themselves will be subjective – particularly in the case of the victim’s description of their attacker in a serious violent crime. Farrington & Lambert (in Jackson & Bekerian, 1997: 133-158) point out the additional police records’ reliability as a central fault to the process of profiling, and encourage profilers to keep in mind this subjectivity. Their research compares burglary and violent offenders in an exploratory way, looking at levels of agreement observable features, and links to another large area of research, that of memory for characteristics of people between different observers. The SPA work of Davies uses an interesting terminology in the word ‘script’ (Jackson & Bekerian, 1997: 193-4), where their first hypothesis of the data-based approach to offender profiling is that human behaviour is based on previously acted-out behaviour. The ‘script’ is the “way the memory of frequently repeated experiences or ‘episodes’ is stored cognitively” (Jackson & Bekerian, 1997: 193), and is akin to the schema theories central to much of reconstructive memory research (Bartlett, 1932: cited in Atkinson , 1993). It seems obvious why, when looking at the effectiveness of offender profiling, we must consider the larger implications of the nature of recording description about people we suspect of serious crimes, as well as the possible motivations of those carrying out the observations.

The different profilers catalogued by Copson’s (1995) U.K. study range from the clinical psychologist/psychiatrist to the forensic psychiatrist and the police officer or scientist. Qualification as a criminal profiler in the FBI behavioural science unit leads to perhaps a less-varied job title (although the various origins of investigation are just as varied), nonetheless a standardisation of process and expertise appears to be superior to the U.K. methods. A look at recent dramatic fiction in film gives us an idea of the origins of the fear expressed by Copson et al:

“The failure to publicly articulate even a rudimentary account of what they [criminal profilers] do in common has left them vulnerable to readers as unscientific readers of imaginary runes.” (Copson et al, 1997: 13)

The 2001 film, ‘The Gift’ saw a psychic and tarot card reader (played by Cate Blanchett) in the role of an advisory profiler when trying to solve a murder in small-town Southern America. The scepticism of the law enforcers around her concerning her knowledge of the case links to then Copson et al quote, and more overtly to the failing of the standardisation of method seen across the profiling world.

The choosing of a technique of offender profiling with the most to offer must be regarded as fluid and flexible. The practical method most suitable to the case will inevitably be one where the type of investigation is well established for the particular general type of offence. This will not happen until a transatlantic perspective is added to the unification process. The American authorship of Turvey (1999) not only means different ideas, but a positive disregard of most U.K profiling techniques. Only one reference is made to the work of British-based Canter in Turvey (1999), compared with Copson et al’s (1997) placing of his work as one of ‘the two’ (the other being the FBI’s) landmark works on offender profiling. As Jackson & Bekerian (1997: 209) highlight, there is a distinct ‘lack of unification’.

The use of offender profiling has come a long way since the establishment of an FBI unit over twenty years ago, not least in its widespread use for many different types of cases, yet it remains to be seen whether or not it will bridge the gap to a standardised, clinical scientific basis in the future of law enforcement.

Word Count: 2,622

References

Atkinson, R. L., Atkinson, R. C., Smith, E.E., Bem, D. J. (1993) ‘Introduction to Psychology’ (11th ed.). Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Bromberg, W. (1965) ‘Crime and the mind: a psychiatric analysis of crime and punishment’. New York: The Macmillan Company.

Copson, G. (1995) Coals to Newcastle? Part 1: a study of offender profiling. Police Interest Group: Special Interest Series: Paper 7. London: Home Office

Copson, G., Badcock, R., Boon, J. & Britton, P. (1997) Articulating a systematic approach to clinical crime profiling. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 7, 13-17

Hazelwood, R. R. & Warren, J. I. (2000) The sexually violent offender: impulsive or ritualistic? Aggression and Violent Behaviour, Voil. 5, No. 3, pp. 267-79

Jackson, J. L. & Bekerian, D. A. (1997) ‘Offender profiling: theory, research and practice’. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Turvey, B. (1999) ‘Criminal profiling: an introduction to behavioural evidence analysis’. San Diego: Academic Press.

Web site: www.fbi.gov/hq/td/academy/bsu/bsu.htm