Criminal Profiling
(Definition) The process of investigating a killer’s behavior, motives, and background in
order to direct an investigation.
Profilers use deductive and inductive profiling methods, as well as victimology to help formulate
patterns or similarities between crimes. Can be used in most crimes, but extensively used in
cases of serial killers.
Serial Killer (def) - 3 or more killings, as separate events, with a cooling off period in between.
I. Purpose of Criminal Profiling
a. Investigative tool when leads are limited
b. Provides a direction in a lagging case
c. Offers psychological advice for court, witnesses or juries
d. Provides psychological insight in conducting interviews and interrogation
e. Develops systematic computer tracking of unsolved serial-murder cases
f. Facilitates communication among jurisdictions dealing with serial offenses.
g. Offering critique of investigative procedures, forensic evidence collection, and
sampling.
h. In evidence corroboration
(Eric Hickey “Serial Murderers and Their Victims”)
II. Types of Criminal Profiling
a. Offender Profiling
(Formulate patterns based on stereotyping a criminals description and or M.O. This
methods relies less on empirical data and more on implications and the investigators
“gut feelings”. Some scientists refer to this as “informed speculation”.
b. Victim Profiling (Victimology)
Profilers identify the personality and behavioral characteristics of crime victims who
tend to fall prey to certain types of offenders. Information can be gathered through
interviews, personal records, witnesses, family and friends.
c. Equivocal Death Profiling
Also referred to sometimes as psychological autopsy because investigators apply
non-scientific information to explain the motivations of a person or group engaged in
suicide pacts or difficult-to-explain deaths.
d. DNA Profiling
Profilers link suspects to crime scenes where DNA evidence has been obtained. Some
connections can be made between crimes such as rapes and rape-murders.
e. Crime Scene Profiling
Profiling based on the FBI’s model developed by the Behavioral Science Unit.
Investigators focus on crime scene descriptions, offender’s behavior pre-and post
criminal act(s), traffic patterns, physical evidence, and victim information.
A 1988 study of 36 serial sexual murderers created this dichotomy of offender
characteristics:
(SA Robert Ressler etal)
Organized Offender – is methodical, premeditated, mature, resourceful, and usually
involves sexual perversion.
Disorganized Offender – is more random, opportunistic, and has an underlying
mental disorder.
Organized
Good intelligence
Socially/sexually competent
Stable work history
Controlled during crime
Living with someone
Very mobile
Follows the investigation in the media
May leave town/change jobs
Uses alcohol prior to crime
Disorganized
Average or low intelligence
Socially/sexually incompetent
Lack of a stable work history
Anxious during the crime
Living alone
Lives near the crime scene
Little interest in the media
Little change in lifestyle
Little alcohol use.
f. Psychological Profiling
Also known as criminal personality assessment. The purpose is to produce a file, that
is, to identify and interpret certain items of evidence at the crime scene that would
be indicative of the personality type of the individual(s) committing the crime. This
profiling is used within the other types of profiling.
* The goal of profiling is to provide enough information to investigators to enable
them to limit or better direct their investigation.
g. Geographical Profiling
Also referred to as spatial mapping, this technique combines geography and
environmental criminology to connect crime scenes to offenders habitats and
hunting grounds.
Includes elements of: distance, mobility, mental maps, and locality demographics.
Kim Rossamo (1999) a pioneer of geographic profiling identifies four offender styles
in hunting for victims.
1. Hunter - identifies a specific victim in his home area
2. Poacher – prefers to travel away from home area for hunting victims
3. Troller – an opportunistic killer, he attacks victims while carrying out his
regular activities
4. Trapper – a spider-and-fly scenario where an offender enjoys laying a trap for
his victim
Geographic Comfort Zone – killers tend to hunt for victims in relations to where the offender
works, lives, and carries out his daily routine activities. The geographic comfort zone becomes
the hunting grounds for the serial offender. 71% operate within their comfort zone (Apache 1993).
III. History
a. 1950’s FBI interviewed incarcerated killers to look for commonalities in their
backgrounds and behaviors. The following pattern was revealed:
Childhood
1. Victims of child abuse (physical and/or sexual)
2. Fire setters
Late teens – early 20’s
3. Cruelty to animals
4. Petty crime
Adulthood: mid to late 20’s
5. Defying authority
6. Escalating in criminal behavior to serious violent crimes
b. 1970’s FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit
1. Established by Special Agents John Douglas and Robert Ressler.
c. 1995 The BSU is known as the Investigative Support Unit (ISU) part of the Critical
Incident Response Group of the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia
IV. Motives
Manipulation, domination, and to fulfill sexual fantasies. They get fulfillment in
accomplishing their goals that they collect “trophies” from their victims in order to relive this
feeling
Trophy – the offender collects cuttings from the victim in the form of clothing, jewelry,
and/or flesh.
Signature – a ritual or behavior pattern that, though unnecessary, fulfills the killer
emotionally.
V. Method
a. Inductive Profiling – assumes that the criminal will have backgrounds and motives
similar to those of other offenders who have behaved in the same way. (ex. Serial
Rapists who target white women is unlikely to be black because in the past they
rarely crossed racial lines.
d. Deductive Profiling – a profile established based on the offenders actions
before, during, and after committing the crime.
(ie. Makeshift or improvised weapon = impulsive)
Deductive profilers: 1. Avoid generalizations or averages
2. Studies suspects in extreme details
FBI’s Profiling Strategy
1. Profiling Inputs –collates information about the crime
2. Decision Process Models –looks for patterns: classify crimes, judge criminal and
victim risk, look at action before and after the crime
3. Crime Assessment –reconstruct offender’s behavior: What does it reveal about their
character?
4. Profile – from the results of the crime assessment, build up a description of the most
likely suspect: probable race, sex, age, lifestyle, beliefs, values, and criminal record.
5. Investigation Profilers report can be used to help police narrow their search for the
suspect.
6. Apprehension – good interview techniques may elicit a confession
VICAP- Violent Crime Apprehension Program – Located in the Behavioral Science Unit in the
FBI Academy, Quantico Virginia, serves a national clearinghouse for reports involving solved
and unsolved homicides, attempted homicides, abductions, missing persons where violence is
suspected, and unidentified dead bodies involving homicides.
FBI program where local jurisdictions submit details of violent crimes committed in their
jurisdiction. The information is stored and compiled, where M.O.’s methods of operation are
looked for.
“VICAP’s purpose was not to investigate case but to analyze them” (Ressler 1988).
Today the BSU is known as Investigative Support Unit (ISU), part of the Critical Incident
Response Group at the FBI Academy.
VI. Crime Scene
A. Organized – killer carried out a plan (premeditated)
B. Disorganized – killer took the advantage of an opportunity (unprepared)= opportunistic
VII. Additional Facts
1. Serial Murderers defines by the National Institute of Justice, NIJ, 1988 are 2 or more
murders committed as separate events.
2. FBI estimated over 500 serial killers at large.
3. Since 1900 835 cases of serial murder (1,008 killers ---7,000 to 9,000 victims)
4. North America has 79% of all serial murders
5. 88% are male/whites/29 years old and target strangers
6. 71% operate in their comfort zone.