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 agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

(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.

Development

One of the first American profilers was FBI agent John E. Douglas, who was also instrumental in developing the

behavioral science Behavioural science is the branch of science concerned with Human behavior, human behaviour.Hallsworth, M. (2023). A manifesto for applying behavioural science. ''Nature Human Behaviour'', ''7''(3), 310-322. While the term can technically be ap ...

method of

law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of the government or other social institutions who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by investigating, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms gove ...

. The ancestor of modern profiling, R. Ressler (FBI), considered profiling as a process of identifying all the psychological characteristics of an individual, forming a general description of the personality, based on the analysis of the crimes committed by him.

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 (also referred to as 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 deat ...

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 committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

. 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 (often shortened to M.O. or MO) is an individual's habits of working, particularly in the context of business or criminal investigations, but also generally. It is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as . Term The term is often used in ...

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 a unique feature of something. The term is often used to express peculiarity. Etymology The term "idiosyncrasy" originates from Greek ', "a peculiar temperament, habit of body" (from ', "one's own", ', "with" and ', "blend ...

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 statistics, statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analy ...

characteristics, family characteristics, military background, education, personality characteristics, and it may also suggest to the investigator the appropriate interview/ interrogation techniques to adopt.

Criticism

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 set, 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: nothi ...

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 Detective, investigators to link cases that may have been committed by the same ...

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 (also called a serial murderer) is a person who murders three or more people,An offender can be anyone: * * * * * (This source only requires two people) with the killings taking place over a significant period of time in separat ...

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 List of Latin phrases, Latin phrase meaning literally for this. In English language, English, it typically signifies a solution designed for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a Generalization, generalized solution ...

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 reasoning (, "circle in proving"; also known as circular logic) is a fallacy, logical fallacy in which the reasoner begins with what they are trying to end with. Circular reasoning is not a formal logical fallacy, but a pragmatic defect ...

, involving the "reification of a concept" in contrast to an empirical validation of this concept. The organized/disorganized dichotomy is further flawed in that it fails to meet the criteria of a typology.Canter, D. (2004). Offender Profiling and Investigative Psychology. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 1: 1–15. 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 data set. MDS is used to translate distances between each pair of n objects in a set into a configuration of n points mapped into an ...

(MDS) procedure called smallest-space analysis (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 (CCM).

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