Offender Profiling: Effectiveness, Critiques, and Usefulness

INTRODUCTION TO CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE
INTRODUCTION TO CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE
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1INTRODUCTION TO CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Offender profiling
In this review a critical assessment of the effectiveness and accuracy of the offender
profiling is done. Although majority of people are unaware of the workings of offender profiling
yet it can be seen to becoming a part of the consciousness of the public. Even among the
professional circles this ignorance can be seen to be prevailing (Almond, Alison &Porter, 2007).
There are various myths generated by the fascination of the public with the widespread ignorance
for the subject. These myths can be seen to be distracting attention away from certain significant
and intellectually challenged questions that are important for the investigation of the criminal
behavior such as the assessments of the validity and quality of the information of the decisions
and actions of the police, assessment of the possibilities for the detection of deception and the
consistency of the behavior of a criminal and the crucial difference between the offenders
(Goodwill & Alison, 2007). The inferring of an offender’s characteristics with the actions
present in a crime scene is commonly seen to be associated with ‘offender profiling’. Even
though there are evidences that suggest that there is more to the current methods of profiling than
subjective opinion yet the notion of a profiler who has been able to be successful in a case where
the police have failed is found to be a myth (Canter & Alison, 2018).
In the previous years with the development of the criminal profiling three approaches of
the profiling have been seen to be developed (Bennell, et al., 2008). These three approaches are
Crime Scene Analysis, Investigative Psychology and Geographic Profiling. The crime scene
analysis approach by the FBI can be seen to be a six step process that is profiling of the evidence
at the scene of the crime, processing of decisions of the arrangement of the evidence for the

2INTRODUCTION TO CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE
identification of patterns and commonalities, assessment of the construction of the crime and
determination of the other aspects of the role of the criminal, profiling of the previous analyzes
of the criminal for the definition of the characteristics of the criminal, investigating for the
utilization of the profile for narrowing down the suspect pool and search areas, apprehension of
the identification, investigation, interview, and depending on evidences the arrest of the suspect.
The investigative Psychology approach of the offender profiling was developed by
David Canter for the utilization of the psychological concepts for the investigation techniques are
seen to be incorporated for the development of criminal profiling. Investigative psychology can
be seen to be based on five factor model. The first factor of the investigative psychology is the
interpersonal coherence and the assumption of the symbolization or characterization by the
victim about the association or link between the offender and the victim. The second factor can
be seen to be providing clues regarding the details of the offender with significance of place,
time and the locations of the crime. The third factor can be described as the identification of the
possible suspects based on categories and classifications of the offenders. The fourth factor
considers the probability of the offender committing similar crimes in the past. The fifth and last
factor of the investigative psychology is the awareness of the offender about the crime scene
analysis and other techniques of investigation.
Geographic profiling can be defined as the method of investigation that determines the
probable areas of the crime of the offenders. On developing geographic profiling of the offenders
a few assumptions are made for criminal behavior for underlying attempt for drawing inference
about the location of the offenders. The first assumption in geographic profiling is that crimes
have specific locations. The issue of locatedness becomes complicated if there are multiple
locations associated with a given crime or the crime is seen to be existing in a virtual space. The