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How to Profile a Criminal!

Criminal profiling is neither art, nor science. It can be said, however, to be a complex marriage of the two, where fact and evidence meet instinct and intuition, creativity even. Profilers are much sought after, especially the good ones, because they can help to quickly narrow down the search for suspects, making the time between crime and apprehension that much shorter.

How to profile a criminal is the subject of this article, but let us firstly debunk what criminal profiling actually is!

What Is Criminal Profiling

Dr. James A Brussel, psychiatrist, is widely accredited with the first systematic approach to criminal profiling. The term is used interchangeably with psychological profiling, offender profiling or criminal personality profiling.

Whatever you call it, though, it is basically the ‘identification and breakdown of specific characteristics of individuals who commit specific crimes’. This is done by thoroughly ‘systematic processes of observation, and an analysis of forensic evidence, the crime scene, the victim, and whatever else is done about and specific to the crime’.

Informal profiling isn’t new, dating back to the days of Jack the Ripper, but in the formal sense, as a science, it is a relative newcomer. In fact, most practitioners still differ widely with regards to acceptable terminology and even methodology.

Regardless of these differences, though, criminal profiling is important for a number of reasons.

The Importance

There is a fundamental problem with criminal profiling, in that you can neither determine the accuracy or inaccuracy of a profile until you have apprehended the suspect into custody and made the necessary comparisons. That being said, however, criminal profiling helps to:

• Examine the behavior of criminals
• Evaluate said behave
• Predict possible future behavior

While the contribution of profiling has been said to be a very loose science by some, the accuracy of some of the profiles has led to many a seasoned investigator admitting that there is some merit worth considering here.

Just how one goes about profiling a criminal is discussed next.

Profiling: The Four Areas

There are four investigative areas that criminal profiling makes use of to help investigators gain a better understanding of the habits, modus operandi and even the motivations of killers and sex offenders in particular.

They are:

• Antecedent
• Method
• Disposal, and
• Post-Offence

The Antecedent area involves ascertaining determination. It involves interrogating the reason for action, or crime, in the first place. Questions that this area seeks to answer, among others, are:

• Was there an attraction to some or other characteristic in the victim that made them irresistible?
• Was the crime made irresistible by some or other event in the offender’s life?

Method involves the manner in which the crime was committed. Typically, criminals will apply the same method until they are caught. The use of silk stockings in strangulations, or the use of an object rather than the sexual organ in sexual assaults are typical examples.

This helps profilers establish a pattern of behavior that can lead to the offender being caught.

Disposal involves the treatment of the victim post-crime. Is the murder victim, for example, left in their home or dumped after they have been killed? And in the case of sexual assault, are victims just left at the scene, or forced into a closet or trunk?

Post-Offense is often predictable. Sometimes the media is taunted. Oftentimes notes are sent to investigators, letting them know how close or far they are from catching the offender. The offender might even leave clues, egging the investigative team to catch him, if at all possible.

It is important to note that no one area of the criminal profiling process is more important than another. To be a true profiler, you need to examine pre-crime as well as post-crime behavior to give you an understanding of the overall mental processes of the criminal you are profiling.

As alluded to before, this is not an exact science. Human beings, by their very nature, are unpredictable. Also, as previously stated, criminal profiling is most useful after the fact, when the offender has been apprehended. In the article Modus Operandi, John Douglas said that ‘most killers leave behind a calling card, to mark their work’. It is usually this calling card, in addition to the criminal profile, that leads to them being caught.

So, if criminal profiling is neither science nor art, neither investigation nor psychology, how does one become a profiler? This question is answered next.

Becoming a Good Criminal Profiler

Some criminal profilers are psychologists or psychiatrists that consult with law enforcement agencies and earn more than fair compensation for their efforts. Realistically, you are probably nowhere near there. Also, to think that you will walk out of college and right into a high-paying job as a profiler, think again.

Most profilers have worked their way up through the ranks at their local law enforcement agencies. So, the first thing that you would need to do is assess your current skill set, in order to ascertain what your possible paths to career advancement actually are.

You will, by now, of course, have gone through the ambit of the often stringent requirements for this profession. Having reached this stage in your career, however, you might be asking yourself how you can become a good profiler, or at the very least, better at profiling than you currently are.

There are no hard and fast rules here, but suffice it to say, your profiling skills can be augmented by actively engaging in the following activities:

• Read, a lot! There are numerous case studies out there that give you an indication of good and bad profiling. There are cases where the profilers got it right, and instances where they got it very wrong. Study these!
• Practice! There is the common belief that you need to work at something for 10 000 hours to become in expert. How many hours have you put into you job as a criminal profiler?

We have said this before, but it warrants repetition, in closing: criminal profiling is not an exact science. Experience, gut feel, instinct, psychological measures and criminal investigative procedures all come into play. If you are going to be an expert at profiling criminals, you will need to get the perfect balance between all these aspects!

References

Timothy Roufa, How to Become A Criminal Profiler, (November 08, 2016)

Profiling, http://www.all-about-forensic-psychology.com/criminal-profiling.html

Lea Winerman, Criminal Profiling, the Reality Behind the Myth, (July/August 2004)