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Criminal personality profiling has emerged as an important forensic science tool because of the growing need for professionals in the behavioral science sector to help law enforcement personnel in dealing with various crime scenes. The paper discusses this technique in light of its definition and recent advances as a science rather than an art. The discussion demonstrates how various attributes of a crime scene and investigations have led to its development and use in modern criminal justice system. The discussion also includes a brief analysis of the three major stages in the process of criminal personality profiling. These stages are generation of hypotheses to be used as leads for arresting and prosecuting unknown offenders, providing suggestions for interviews, and evaluation of physical evidence.
The modern criminal justice system is characterized by a growing demand for professionals in the behavioral science field to help experts in law enforcement and criminal justice to address weird and unusual cases. The need for such experts is fueled by the presence of several factors and antecedent incidents that are involved in violent crimes. Some of the incidents and factors include intent to commit an offense, plan and kind of criminal, the scene of crime, and the type of victim. In light of these circumstances, criminal personality profiling has emerged as a major way for examining the weird and unusual cases law enforcement personnel deal with when carrying out their work. The use of this process is attributed to the psychological pattern, arrangement, and expression of the criminal when a crime is conducted.
Definition of Criminal Personality Profiling:
Criminal personality profiling is a technique that has been developing progressively as a...
The introduction and development of this technique is attributed to the establishment of the Behavioral Science Unit by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (McCann, 1992, p.475). Since its inception, various terms have been used to describe the mechanism such as criminal profiling, criminal investigative analysis, and psychological profiling. Despite the utilized term, criminal personality profiling is a reflection of an educated initiative to offer law enforcement agencies with comprehensive information regarding individual characteristics of an unidentified person who has committed an offense.
Generally, criminal personality profiling can be described as the process of evaluating various elements of violent crime to generate a series of theories regarding the attributes of an unknown attacker. The main objective of criminal personality profiling is to help in the successful arrest and conviction of the executor. Criminal personality profiling achieves this objective through evaluating and identifying the understated habits, psychological characteristics, and personality differences with criminal activity (Davis, 1999, p.291). The characteristics and variables are usually used to establish personality and behavioral aspects of a criminal who usually conducts violent offenses such as kidnapping and arson. During the process of criminal personality profiling, profilers examine all attributes of a crime scene and then utilize their knowledge of human psychology to generate an outline of the unknown attacker. The generation of a profile of the unidentified perpetrator helps in limiting the list of probable descriptions that the criminal probably matches. According to Turvey (2011), a criminal personality profile is…
References:
Davis, J.A. (1999). Criminal Personality Profiling and Crime Scene Assessment -- A
Contemporary Investigative Tool to Assist Law Enforcement Public Safety. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 15(3), 291-301.
McCann, J.T. (1992). Criminal Personality Profiling in the Investigation of Violent Crime:
Recent Advances and Future Directions. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 10, 475-481.
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