Criminal Psycholinguistics as a Predictor of Criminality

Introduction

Language is used differently across individuals and contexts. Humans use it in many forms and by many means, and because it reflects a person's character, language helps observers perceive what kind of profile a person has. This reality led the researcher to explore the psycholinguistics of criminals.

This thesis focuses primarily on a collective study aimed at determining a criminal based on the language he or she uses, mainly in verbal form. Specifically, the study aims to examine results of verbal psycholinguistics — that is, the speech of a suspected criminal.

The study will address the following research questions: How do criminals speak? How do criminals use techniques to conceal their profiles? How do criminals operate through telephone conversations? How do criminals behave upon being caught? And how do criminals answer questions during police interrogations?

There have been studies that explain the general characteristics of criminals, which help intelligence and security forces to apprehend them more quickly and systematically. Today, criminals are identified through different schemata, including geographical origins; ethnicity or race; age; sex; and occupation, education level, and religious orientation or background (Smith & Shuy, 2002).

Literature Review

Criminal profiling has been used for years by investigators to obtain data about a suspect in a criminal investigation. In recent years, with the growth in knowledge about a person's overall cognition and linguistic patterns, criminal profiling has focused even more on training personnel to examine a suspected criminal's spoken and/or written word. The language of criminals has often proven to be distinct from that of non-criminals, with differences ranging from the smallest phoneme or morpheme to differences in actual words or combinations of words used.

In the article "Early American Crime," we see that criminals have purposefully used a different language — or "Cant" — in order to make themselves incomprehensible to law enforcement. While criminal profiling does look at purposeful language use in its analysis, it also examines the language that criminals inadvertently or non-purposefully use both before and after a crime, in order to solve mysteries surrounding that crime.

In "Criminal Profiling: Real Science or Just Wishful Thinking?" by Damon A. Muller, the author provides an overview of different personality traits among various types of criminals. This article is helpful in gaining a general understanding of how criminal profiling works, as well as in identifying general personality types relevant to criminal investigation. According to Muller, criminal profiling is designed to generate information on a perpetrator — usually a serial offender — through an analysis of the crime scene left behind. The two main approaches to criminal profiling are crime scene analysis and investigative psychology. Muller examines each of these approaches and concludes that both should be considered legitimate science rather than wishful thinking.

In "Criminal Profiling from Crime Scene Analysis," four experienced FBI agents take the reader through the history of criminal profiling and explain how to conduct a thorough crime scene analysis. The article explains which types of crimes and criminals can be successfully profiled in practice. Approximately thirty years later, the FBI issued "Forensic Psycholinguistics: Using Language Analysis for Identifying and Assessing Offenders" by FBI agents Sharon S. Smith and Roger W. Shuy. In that article, they discuss how criminal investigative analysis — formerly called criminal profiling — is used as an investigative tool to connect suspects to their crimes through a close examination of their behavior. They argue that an often underused behavior is an examination of the suspect's actual language, and they carefully list the different kinds of information that written or spoken language might provide.

In Susan H. Adams's article "Statement Analysis: What Do Suspects' Words Really Reveal?" she explains how statement analysis assists the FBI and other crime investigators. Investigators use the techniques described in this article to gain insight into a suspect before conducting an interview about a crime. By learning about a suspect and determining whether the suspect is being deceptive, the investigator has a much better chance of identifying the guilty party and obtaining a confession during interrogation. Adams describes statement analysis as a two-step process. First, the investigator must establish what a truthful statement looks like — in other words, what the norm is. Second, the investigator looks for deviations from that norm to detect lying. In statement analysis, investigators rely primarily on written statements and examine four main elements: (1) parts of speech usage, (2) extraneous information, (3) lack of conviction, and (4) balance of the statement.

In the article "Focus on School Violence: Bomb Threat Assessments," Ronald F. Tunkel provides insight into how principles of psycholinguistics and statement analysis can assist investigators, educators, administrators, and law enforcement personnel in the specific situation of a school bomb threat. Tunkel argues that it is possible to accurately assess the credibility of a threat and determine the appropriate response by analyzing the language used by the person making the threat. He emphasizes that statement analysis involves studying a subject's language whether it is verbal or written. In addition, statement analysis can help detect indicators of deception, uncover hidden or disguised meanings and motivations, and identify areas of sensitivity to the subject. Furthermore, the use of first-person active tense and unequivocal language signals a meaningful level of commitment by a person threatening criminal activity.

The article "Comparative and Non-Comparative Forensic Analysis Techniques" explains the relationship between language analysis techniques and why, under the Federal Rules of Evidence, such evidence cannot be used in court to prove that a crime was committed. The article clarifies complex law regarding the federal rules of court and criminal procedure, and draws the connection between those rules and why linguistic evidence is generally inadmissible as a matter of law.

In her article "A Rhetorical Journey Into Darkness: Crime Scene Profiling as Burkean Analysis," Jennifer MacLennan of the University of Saskatchewan discusses another way in which profiling a criminal's text or spoken word can aid in the analysis of a crime or a criminal. MacLennan notes that victims of crimes often want to understand why they were chosen as targets by a seemingly random attacker. Through examining the criminal's language or text, investigators can glimpse the motivation of the criminal — insights that may also help victims understand what happened and move forward.

While the language used by a criminal may reveal motivation or modus operandi, the study "The Effect of Accent Evaluation and Evidence on a Suspect's Perceived Guilt and Criminality" by John A. Dixon and Berenice Mahoney examined the effect of accent, evidence type, and crime type on participants' perceptions of guilt and criminality. This study was notable for openly concluding that a particular speech characteristic does not necessarily indicate criminal behavior. After listening to recordings of criminals and police officers, the researchers found that — contrary to previous research — a speaker's accent did not influence attributions or perceptions of guilt, either as a main effect or in interaction with other variables. However, independent of the evidence presented and the crime type, a regionally accented suspect was evaluated as more stereotypically criminal and more likely to be accused of a future crime than a standard-accented suspect.

In Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal Justice, the author Bilz provides an introduction to forensic linguistics and explains the techniques used in that discipline. Bilz also makes a controversial claim: that the era of the confession will soon be replaced by DNA identification, fMRI lie-detector tests, and data fingerprinting using the Internet. According to Bilz, courts will rely less and less on confessions, and as a result the study of psycholinguistics in criminal law will become increasingly less relevant to investigation and prosecution. Since that day has not yet arrived, this thesis will continue to explore the utility of forensic psycholinguistic analysis in the criminal arena.

The data gathered for this study was collected using a variety of databases via the Internet. A significant number of queries were made using a variety of keywords and phrases. Additional studies were uncovered through citations listed in the articles themselves, since this topic represents a highly specialized area of forensic science.

The sources were read and summarized for the most relevant ideas pertaining to the research questions. They were then organized both chronologically and thematically — from general information to more specific information — so that they could be examined and presented together. Areas for future investigation include an assessment of the claim that criminals tend toward melancholy, and an inquiry into whether advancing technology will render psycholinguistics irrelevant, as claimed in Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal Justice.

Furthermore, the completed thesis will organize material to provide a clear explanation and listing of the different morphemes, phonemes, word parts, vocabulary items, and accents that may or may not affect assessments of guilt, culpability, and motivation. The thesis will also identify the specific types of crimes for which psycholinguistics may be most helpful in understanding the criminal, and will match specific language or speech patterns to the particular criminal activity under discussion.

Bilz, Kenworthey. "Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal Justice." Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 96.1 (2005): 367+. Questia. Web. 16 Apr. 2010.

Casey-Owens, M. (1984). The anonymous letter-writer — a psychological profile? Journal of Forensic Sciences, 29, 816–819.

Christie, A. (1963). The clocks (pp. 227–228). New York: Pocket Books.

Geberth, V. J. (1981, September). Psychological profiling. Law and Order, pp. 46–49.

"Comparative and Non-Comparative Forensic Analysis Techniques." University of Detroit Mercy Law Review 83.285 (1986). Web.