Criminal profiling methods and applications

Criminal Justice - Profiling

CRIMINAL PROFILING

Background and History of Criminal Profiling:

Criminal profiling is based on the notion that criminality is a form of behavior that can be predicted based on knowledge of the perpetrator's personality and personal characteristics. Its first use was pioneered by the U.S. Office of Strategic Services during World War II in connection with the efforts of William Langer, a government psychiatrist, tasked with the objective of predicting Adolf Hitler's actions in advance, based on his psychological profile (Schmalleger, 2007).

During the last two decades of the 20th century, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) made extensive use of criminal psychological profiling in identifying perpetrators of specific crimes, such as arson, violent sex offenses, and serial criminals, precisely because those types of crimes include strong psychological components in their motivation. Likewise, criminal profiling has been employed in identifying other crimes with strong psychological elements, such as "Munchausen syndrome by proxy" (MSBP), a psychological disorder in which parents or other caretakers deliberately cause their children to become ill in order to generate attention and sympathy for themselves on the part of healthcare providers and other people Schmalleger, 2007).

Criminal profiling also includes the age-old practice of police in relation to narrowing the field of potential perpetrators by virtue of physical characteristics providing by victims and eyewitnesses to crimes. Used in that manner and for that purpose, criminal profiling refers merely to the logical focus on suspects who share personally identifying features and characteristics with reliable evidence about the crime.

However, criminal profiling has also been used by police for purposes that violate the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the U.S. Constitution, such as in connection with initiating traffic stops based on so-called "indicators" of higher likelihood of criminal involvement, partially based on race and ethnicity (Zalman, 2008).

Similarly, police practices have been called into question where they initiated spontaneous investigations of persons not engaged in any criminal activity, but rather because they appeared to the officers, simply by virtue of race or ethnicity, "out of place" in particular neighborhoods (Walker, Spohn, et al., 2004). Finally, the post 9/11 era of American law enforcement has renewed interest in racial and ethnic profiling, arising from the fact that the predominant source of terrorist threats against U.S. interests, both abroad and on American soil, are inspired by Islamic extremism and perpetrated by members of Muslim cultures. This may prove to be the most difficult aspect of modern criteria for distinguishing between legitimate and constitutionally impermissible use of criminal profiling because while terrorist efforts indeed reflect an Islamic origin, law enforcement practices intended to identify terrorists could easily deprive ordinary law-abiding American citizens of their fundamental rights, merely by virtue of their shared ethnic background with Muslim terrorists (Dershowitz, 2002).

Permissible Forms of Criminal Profiling:

Criminality is a form of human behavior, and therefore, it is capable of being predicted in the same way that myriad other elements of past behavior and personal psychological profiles of individuals have enabled criminal investigators to narrow their searches for unknown suspects of particular crimes (Schmalleger, 2007). The techniques involved make use of a broad range of personality characteristics and of behavioral choices that have been identified as statistically more common among perpetrators of particular types of crimes.

In that regard, retrospective analysis of known criminals sometimes reveals distinct criteria for establishing profiles of perpetrators of specific types of crimes.

Forensic analysis of crimes scenes and of any other evidence associated with specific crimes often discloses information consistent with certain characteristics, such as age, type of occupation, likely social and psychological orientation, and lifestyle (Peak, 2002).

That process has enabled criminal investigators to determine that criminal patterns are consistent with certain type of past criminal activity; that elements of crime scenes are consistent with military training; and that prior history of certain types of criminal and non-criminal activity are commonly shared by individuals who perpetrate specific types of crimes.

As such, criminal profiling provides a very valuable set of investigatory resources and approaches to identifying criminal perpetrators and solving crime. However, legitimate techniques and theories of profiling in law enforcement can also be applied in such a manner as to violate fundamental civil rights and elements of constitutional law as it pertains to law enforcement. Impermissible Forms of Criminal Profiling:

At the simplest level, whenever police compile information provided by eyewitnesses (or technological surveillance) as to the identifying characteristics of criminal perpetrators (i.e. height, weight, age, race, etc.), in connection with the investigation of specific criminal activity, that information allows authorities to narrow the search for individuals who match those identifying characteristics. The process is perfectly logical and obviously makes infinitely more sense than continuing to search for individuals who bear no resemblance to the descriptions provided by reliable sources.

However, the same legitimate techniques with respect to specific evidence of crimes also has a history of impermissible application in ways that deprive subjects of police investigation of their fundamental constitutional rights. For example, in the late 20th century, the U.S. Customs Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration both made extensive use of what they called "criminal indicators" in connection with their efforts to apprehend criminal drug traffickers as they attempted to enter the U.S. At the borders (Schmalleger, 2007).

Among other criteria, those sets of indicators including Hispanic origin and language, age range, gender, and country of origin, among other behavioral elements such as paying for tickets in cash, and staying only briefly in the country. According to the federal authorities, previous arrests of drug courier and distributors revealed the statistical likelihood of drug activity based on such factors. Nevertheless, in 2003, the Department of Justice (DOJ) absolutely prohibited the continued use of such indicators as a violation of civil rights that exposes law enforcement authorities to substantial liability (Schmalleger, 2007).

Likewise, studies conducted by the DOJ and other incorporating Bureau of Justice (BOJ) statistics of police traffic stops nationwide suggested a significant discrepancy between the proportion of black and Hispanics in the U.S. population and the frequency with which police initiated traffic stops of members of those minorities in comparison to non-minority drivers. Furthermore, whereas traffic stops generated relatively few arrests, the majority of those motorists of whom police requested consent to search their vehicles in circumstances where search without consent was absolutely prohibited by virtue of the absence of probable cause to suspect criminal activity were non-white. Finally, the numbers of arrests of minorities in connection with such traffic stops were also highly disproportionate in terms of the proportionate representation of racial minorities, both in the universe of drivers as well as in the overall population (Walker, Spohn, et al., 2004).