Offender profiling: methods and applications in criminal investigation

Types of Criminal Profiling
According to Bartol & Bartol (2017), there are five broad categories of criminal profiling, but they are not mutually exclusive and are frequently used in tandem with one another to aid investigations. The first type of criminal profiling covered in the text is commonly referred to as psychological profiling: the profiling of known individuals like suspects. The goal of psychological profiling is risk or threat assessment: to determine how serious a person may be if they have threatened violence. Similarly, psychological profiling can be used on persons who have been flagged for violating social norms or who have acted out. As helpful as psychological profiling can be to investigators, it is important to note that the process can be misleading and even harmful to investigations (Sample, 2010). Psychological profiling methods are not necessarily grounded in research, and can lead to spurious results and prejudicial data.
The second type of profiling Bartol & Bartol (2017) cover is suspect-based. Also known as prospective profiling, suspect-based profiling uses acutorial methods and statistics to help narrow down a list of potential features or characteristics that would help investigators identify potential threats. Unfortunately, suspect-based profiling frequently involves racial profiling. As Kocsis & Palermo (2013) point out, trait-based profiling can be problematic because this method of profiling raises serious ethical and legal concerns.
Third, geographical profiling helps law enforcement officers to narrow their investigation to a specific location. It is data based and actuarial, often using complex analyses of multiple data points in order to show where a suspect or perpetrator might be hiding or planning their next attack. Geographical profiling avoids bias by being actuarial but is limited in its scope.
A fourth and commonly used type of criminal profiling is crime scene profiling. Romanticized in movies and television crime dramas, crime scene profiling is used when an offender is not yet known: investigators piece together a possible image or description of the offender based on the forensics evidence found at the scene or witness reports. Crime scene profiling involves behavioral analysis and takes into account the appearance of the scene and the clues left behind either purposely or inadvertently. The totality of evidence and observations compiled might not be actuarial but it can be systematic and helpful in some cases.
Finally, equivocal death analysis or reconstructive psychological evaluation uses a totally different approach to profiling than the other four methods. Equivocal death analysis involves a careful examination of a deceased individual—typically used to ascertain whether a death was accidental, a suicide, or a homicide. Investigators do not just look at the coroner’s physical evidence or laboratory reports but also social and psychological variables that may lend insight into the cause of death.
No one type of profiling is necessarily more promising than any other. Each should be used in accordance with the details of the crime and the nature of the investigation. However, crime scene profiling provides a comprehensive method that takes into account multiple variables.
Crime Scene Profiling
Crime scene profiling is neither fully reliable nor entirely valid because it is not based on raw data; instead it relies on subjective impressions and potentially biased observations (Bartol & Bartol, 2017). To mitigate problems associated with crime scene profiling, it may be helpful to use a team of investigators with diverse perspectives and backgrounds. Similarly, crime scene profiling should ideally be combined with other methods of profiling to provide investigators with a more robust and valid data set that reduces the likelihood of false positives.
References
Bartol, C. R., & Bartol, A. M. (2017). Criminal behavior: A psychological approach (11th ed.). Retrieved from https://redshelf.com/
Kocsis, R. N., & Palermo, G. B. (2015). Disentangling Criminal Profiling: Accuracy, Homology, and the Myth of Trait-Based Profiling. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 59(3), 313-332. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X13513429
Sample, I. (2010). Psychological profiling ‘worse than useless.’ The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/sep/14/psychological-profile-behavioural-psychology