The FBI method of profiling is a system created by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
(FBI) used to detect and classify the major personality and
behavioral characteristics of an individual based upon analysis of the crime or crimes the person committed. One of the first American profilers was FBI agent
John E. Douglas
John Edward Douglas (born ) is an American retired special agent and unit chief in the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was one of the first criminal profilers and has written books on criminal psychology.
Early life a ...
, who was also instrumental in developing the
behavioral science
Behavioral sciences explore the cognitive processes within organisms and the behavioral interactions between organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behavior through naturalistic o ...
method of
law enforcement
Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term en ...
.
Profiling phases
The process this approach uses to determine offender characteristics involves:
#An assimilation phase where all information available in regard to the crime scene, victim, and witnesses is examined. This may include photographs of the crime scene,
autopsy
An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any di ...
reports, victim profiles, police reports, and witness statements.
#The "classification stage", which involves integrating the information collected into a framework which essentially classifies the murderer as "organized" or "disorganized". Organized murderers are thought to have advanced social skills, plan their crimes, display control over the victim using social skills, leave little
forensic evidence
Forensic identification is the application of forensic science, or "forensics", and technology to identify specific objects from the trace evidence they leave, often at a crime scene or the scene of an accident. Forensic means "for the courts".
Hu ...
or clues, and often engage in
sexual acts
Human sexual activity, human sexual practice or human sexual behaviour is the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts, ranging from activities done alone (e.g., masturbation) t ...
with the victim ''before'' the
murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...
. In contrast, the disorganized offender is described as
impulsive, with few social skills, such that his/her murders are opportunistic and crime scenes suggest frenzied, haphazard behavior and a lack of planning or attempts to avoid detection. They might engage in sexual acts after the murder because they lack knowledge of normal sexual behavior.
[Woodworth & Porter, 2002]
#Following the classification stage profilers attempt to reconstruct the behavioral sequence of the crime, in particular, attempting to reconstruct the offender's
modus operandi
A ''modus operandi'' (often shortened to M.O.) is someone's habits of working, particularly in the context of business or criminal investigations, but also more generally. It is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as "mode (or manner) of op ...
or method of committing the crime.
[Jackson et al., 1997]
#Profilers also examine closely the offender's “signature” which is identifiable from the crime scene and is more
idiosyncratic
An idiosyncrasy is an unusual feature of a person (though there are also other uses, see below). It can also mean an odd habit. The term is often used to express eccentricity or peculiarity. A synonym may be "quirk".
Etymology
The term "idiosyncra ...
than the modus operandi—the signature is what the offender does to satisfy his psychological needs in committing the crime.
#From further consideration of the modus operandi, the offender's signature at the crime scene, and also an inspection for the presence of any staging of the crime, the profiler moves on to generate a profile. This profile may contain detailed information regarding the offender's
demographic
Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings.
Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as edu ...
characteristics, family characteristics, military background, education, personality characteristics, and it may also suggest to the investigator the appropriate interview/
interrogation techniques
Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful informa ...
to adopt.
Criticism
To profile
serial murderer
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A
*
*
*
* with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...
s, it is first necessary to link crimes to a type of common offender. To accomplish this, the type of offender is determined based on classes of action committed at the crime scene.
[Canter, D. (2004). Offender Profiling and Investigative Psychology. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 1: 1–15.] This classification should be reliable and empirically tested in order to assign offenders to one particular group. The classification system should also meet the assumptions of a
typology
Typology is the study of types or the systematic classification of the types of something according to their common characteristics. Typology is the act of finding, counting and classification facts with the help of eyes, other senses and logic. Ty ...
. To specify the characteristics that define a typology, the characteristics must occur together frequently, and be distinct from the characteristics specific to another type.
Much criticism surrounding the FBI process of profiling focuses on the validity of the classification stage. In particular, the criticism targets the organized versus disorganized
dichotomy
A dichotomy is a partition of a whole (or a set) into two parts (subsets). In other words, this couple of parts must be
* jointly exhaustive: everything must belong to one part or the other, and
* mutually exclusive: nothing can belong simulta ...
and its theoretical and empirical foundations and assumptions. This approach has become commonly used in the classifications of violent serial offenders.
The only available study that examines the reliability of the classification system involved the reading of a sexual-homicide case summary. In this study,
inter-rater reliability
In statistics, inter-rater reliability (also called by various similar names, such as inter-rater agreement, inter-rater concordance, inter-observer reliability, inter-coder reliability, and so on) is the degree of agreement among independent obse ...
was found to be between 51.7% and 92.6%.
This study, although dated, does provide limited support for the reliability of the FBI sexual-homicide classification system. However, this form of reliability contributes little to the usefulness of the
offender profiling
Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is an investigative strategy used by law enforcement agencies to identify likely suspects and has been used by investigators to link cases that may have been committed by the same perpetrator. ...
system if the classification is not effective. The FBI classification system is derived from a single interview-based research study with a small sample of apprehended
serial killer
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A
*
*
*
* with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...
s who operated in North America.
The
ecological validity
In the behavioral sciences, ecological validity is often used to refer to the judgment of whether a given study's variables and conclusions (often collected in lab) are sufficiently relevant to its population (e.g. the "real world" context). Psycho ...
of the FBI's classification system considering its limitations has also been criticized. Further limitations of the original study include the
subject selection process that relied on non-random self-selection, and the extensive use of potentially biased data.
[Beasley, J.O. (2004). Serial Murder in America: Case Studies of Seven Offenders. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 22: 395–414.] The interviews were unstructured and led in an
ad hoc
Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning literally 'to this'. In English, it typically signifies a solution for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a generalized solution adaptable to collateral instances. (Compare with ''a priori''.)
Com ...
fashion that was dependent on the interviewees.
[Canter, D., Alison, L.J., Alison, E., & Wentink, N. (2004). The Organized/ Disorganized Typology of Serial Murder: Myth or Model? Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 10(3): 293–320.] The process whereby participants were divided into groups based on organized or disorganized characteristics and behaviors has been described as the product of
circular reasoning
Circular may refer to:
* The shape of a circle
* ''Circular'' (album), a 2006 album by Spanish singer Vega
* Circular letter (disambiguation)
** Flyer (pamphlet), a form of advertisement
* Circular reasoning, a type of logical fallacy
* Circular ...
, involving the “reification of a concept” in contrast to an
empirical validation
Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences and ...
of this concept.
The organized/disorganized dichotomy is further flawed in that it fails to meet the criteria of a typology.
David Canter examined the relationship between the behavioral styles and background characteristics of 100 serial-homicide offenders using a
multidimensional scaling
Multidimensional scaling (MDS) is a means of visualizing the level of similarity of individual cases of a dataset. MDS is used to translate "information about the pairwise 'distances' among a set of n objects or individuals" into a configurati ...
(MDS) procedure called
smallest-space analysis
Multidimensional scaling (MDS) is a means of visualizing the level of similarity of individual cases of a dataset. MDS is used to translate "information about the pairwise 'distances' among a set of n objects or individuals" into a configurati ...
(SSA) that statistically represents the co-occurrence of variables. No evidence was found to support the co-occurrence of behavioral styles or background characteristics related to the organized/disorganized taxonomy as proposed in the
Crime Classification Manual
''Crime Classification Manual: A Standard System for Investigating and Classifying Violent Crimes'' (1992) is a text on the classification of violent crimes by John E. Douglas, Ann W. Burgess, Allen G. Burgess and Robert K. Ressler. The publicatio ...
(CCM).
See also
*
Forensic psychology
Forensic psychology is the development and application of scientific knowledge and methods to help answer legal questions arising in criminal, civil, contractual, or other judicial proceedings. Forensic psychology includes both research on various ...
*
Offender profiling
Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is an investigative strategy used by law enforcement agencies to identify likely suspects and has been used by investigators to link cases that may have been committed by the same perpetrator. ...
*
Investigative psychology
In applied psychology, investigative psychology attempts to describe the actions of offenders and develop an understanding of crime. This understanding can then help solve crimes and contribute to prosecution and defense procedures. It brings to ...
Notes
References
*Douglas, J.E., Ressler, R.K., Burgess, A.W., & Hartman, C.R.(1986). Criminal profiling from crime scene analysis. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 4: 401–421.
*Jackson, J.L., & Bekerian, D.A. (1997). Offender profiling: research, theory, and practice. Chicester: Wiley.
*Turvey, B.E. (1999). Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioural Evidence Analysis. San Diego: Academic.
*Woodworth, M., & Porter, S. (2001). Historical Foundations and Current Applications of Criminal Profiling in Violent Crime Investigations. Expert Evidence, 7: 241–261.
External links
*http://www.all-about-forensic-psychology.com/offender-profiling.html
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fbi Method Of Profiling
Law enforcement techniques
Criminal investigation
Offender profiling