Criminal investigative analysis against violent crime
| Author | Costica Păun |
| Pages | 128-139 |
Costica Păun. Associate professor, Ph.D., Law Faculty, „Nicolae Titulescu” University, Bucharest (e-mail: ci_paun@yahoo.com).
Page 128
The profiling programmed within the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) started developing in the early 1970s. What began with applying the insights of psychological science to violent criminal behavior within the FBI National Academy curricula progressively transformed into the current Behavioral Science Unit program. This was implemented by a program manager and seven criminal profilers and crime analysts, carefully selected based on their investigative experience, expertise and academic backgrounds.
Within the scope of this programme, a profiler coordinator is designated within each FBI territorial unit. The coordinators are assigned the case and provide the investigators with suggestions on how to proceed with the investigation. The field coordinating profilers are not authorized to draw up analyses for the requesting units, but solely to outline an initial profile. This is forwarded for examination to the profiling unit within the FBI Academy. Local, state and federal precincts as well as foreign police units are allowed to request such profiles to be drafted.
At present, an American-inspired type of analysis is used in the European countries facing a high rate of murders (especially in Italy, a country having largely implemented the US federal police system, and in Germany, with its Bund slander).
Amateurism and arrogance are things to be avoided in this field. On the one hand, every misdeed must be subjected to review by the court. On the other hand, the lack of professionalism is severely detrimental both to justice doing as well as to the state budget. Indeed, criminal justice is costly but necessary and, as such, highly trained specialists are needed for it to be efficient.
The criminal profiling process had many international reviews, especially in the American legal space (law enforcement). In this sense we refer to a series of books and articles: CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE ANALYSIS, NATIONAL CENTRE FOR THE ANALYSIS OF VIOLENT CRIME, FBI ACADEMY, Quantico, Va., 1990; Amir, M. (1971), Patterns in forcible rape. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Canter, D. V. (1994), Criminal shadows: Inside the mind ofPage 129 the serial killer. London: Harper Collins; Godwin, M., & Canter, D. (1997), Encounter and death: The spatial behavior of US serial killers, Policing: International Journal of Police Strategy and Management, 20, 24–38; Prentky, R. A., Burgess, A. W., Rokous, F., Lee, A., Hartman, C., Ressler, R., & Douglas, J. (1989), The presumptive role of fantasy in serial sexual homicide. American Journal of Psychiatry, 146, 887–891; Ressler, R. K., Burgess, A. W., Douglas, J. E., Hartman, C. R., & D’Agostino, R. B. (1986), Sexual killers and their victims: Identifying patterns through crime scene analysis, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 1, 288–308; Ainsworth, P. B. (2001), Offender profiling and crime analysis, Cullompton, Devon: Willan Publishing; Canter, D. V. (2000), Offender profiling and criminal differentiation, Legal and Criminological Psychology, 5, 23–46; Canter, D. V., Alison, L. J., Alison, E., & Wentink, N. (2004), The organized/disorganized typology of serial murder: Myth or model? Psychology, Public Policy, & Law, 10, 293–320; Keppel, R.D. (2004), Offender profiling, Ohio: Thomson Custom Publishing.
The systematic analysis of a violent crime generates data needed for identifying and proving the guilt of the perpetrator, such as: forensic evidence tools, major personality and behavioral characteristics of the offender and the victim, the motives behind such behavior, the typologies characteristic to the victim/offender.
The result of such analysis generally involves, according to the case’ difficulty, the following:
- Evaluation of the criminal act itself;
- Comprehensive evaluation of future threats (in case the offender is suspected to be a serial killer);
- Criminal profiling of the unidentified perpetrator;
- Choosing the investigation techniques, upon identifying and catching the suspect;
- Drawing up the proper strategies for the criminal prosecution of the suspect;
- Identifying the areas of expertise needed for the particular case and the set of requests experts are to elaborate on.
Criminal investigative analysis involves several activities aimed at:
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determining what took place. The answer is to contain, among others, a listing of significant actions and reactions, namely the essential behavior by the offender and the victim during the commission of crime;
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Provide a reason, or reasons, for each significant behavior listed (why);
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Set forth the characteristics and traits (non-physical description) of the type of individual who would commit (who) a particular crime in a particular manner for the given set of reasons.
The most difficult task at hand for the analysts is the third of the above and relates to drawing up the psychological and behavior profile of the unknown perpetrator.
The criminal profiling process consists in applying police investigative techniques to the results of interdisciplinary studies with a view to prevent and fight violent crime.
The profiling process is defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as an investigative technique by which to identify the major personality and behavioral characteristics of the offender based upon an analysis of the crime(s) he or she has committed.
The process generally involves seven steps:
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1) Evaluation of the criminal act itself.
2) Comprehensive evaluation of the specifics of the crime scene(s).
3) Comprehensive analysis of the victim.
4) Evaluation of preliminary police reports.
5) Evaluation of the medical examiner's autopsy protocol.
6) Development of profile with critical offender characteristics.
7) Investigative suggestions predicated on construction of the profile.
The criminal personality profile is used by the police precincts as a guiding tool, a way in which the investigating officer can narrow the scope of an investigation. Profiling unfortunately does not provide the identity of the offender, but it does indicate the type of person most likely to have committed a crime having certain unique characteristics.
As a rule, profiles are constructed by two categories of specialists: mental health clinicians trying to account for the criminal personality and behavior by using psychiatric methods and procedures, and law enforcement agents whose task is to determine the behavioral patterns of a suspect through investigative concepts.
The psychiatrist and criminologist James A. Brussel explained the fact that a psychiatrist usually studies a person and makes some reasonable predictions as to how he/she is to react under certain circumstances or what activities he/she is likely to undertake in the future. Profiling is reversing this process, in that it deduces what kind a person the individual might be by studying his/her actions.
The profilers analyze the information gathered while investigating the crime scene and try to establish the type of person capable of committing it. The profiler’s skills rest in identifying the crime dynamics, allowing him/her to make a parallel between the personalities of offenders having committed similar crimes and the personality of the subject under scrutiny.
The process used by an investigative profiler in developing a criminal profile is as follows: data is collected and assessed, the situation reconstructed, hypotheses formulated, a profile developed and tested, and the results reported back. Investigators traditionally have learned profiling through brainstorming, intuition, and educated guesswork. Their expertise is the result of years of accumulated wisdom, extensive experience in the field, and familiarity with a large number of cases.
A profiler brings to the investigation the ability to make hypothetical formulations based on his or her previous experience. A formulation is defined here as a concept that organizes, explains, or makes investigative sense out of information, and that influences the profile hypotheses. These formulations are based on clusters of information emerging from the crime scene data and from the investigator's experience in understanding criminal actions.
The criminal-profile-generating process is described as having five main stages, with a sixth stage, the goal, being the apprehension of a suspect.
This stage begins the criminal-profile-generating process. Comprehensive case materials, providing data and information on the author and how the crime was committed, are essential for accurate profiling. In homicide cases, the required information includes a complete synopsis of thePage 131 crime and a description of the crime scene, encompassing factors indigenous to that area to the time of the incident such as weather conditions and the political and social environment, etc.
Complete background information on the victim is also vital in homicide profiles. The data should cover domestic setting, employment, reputation, habits, fears, physical condition, personality, criminal...
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