Criminal Profiling as an Aid for Apprehending Serial Killers
Popular media loves to emphasize the role of the criminal profiler in apprehending serial killers. It has been a central them in books, television shows, and movies for the past two decades, and the concept of the feisty criminal profiler interviewing wily and brilliant convicted serial killers in an effort to gain insight into active serial killers has become so iconic that while it was once cutting edge, it is almost cliche at this point in time. However, many people would suggest that this image is a highly romanticized one and that serial killers are not generally captured through criminal profiling, but through more traditional forms of crime scene investigation and routine police procedure. In fact, some of these critics of profiling would actually suggest that the process can be harmful because of the possible misidentification of suspects.

This paper seeks to investigate…...

mla

References

Bartol, C. (1996). Police psychology: Then, now, and beyond. Criminal Justice and Behavior,

23, 70-89.

Douglas, J. (2008). John Douglas: Legendary head of the FBI's Investigative Support Unit.

Retrieved February 27, 2012 from John Douglas Mind Hunter website:  http://www.johndouglasmindhunter.com/bio.php

If human behavior can be loosely predicted, then so too can criminal behavior.
4. Criminal profiling is not one hundred percent accurate or valid. It is an inexact science. Results of profiling are close to chance, which is one reason why the process is criticized and used cautiously. Officers of the law may be misled by an inaccurate or hasty profile, and in some cases might even apprehend innocent persons because they meet the characteristics listed in the profile. Generalizations, stereotypes, and false conclusions can be drawn during the process of criminal profiling. Biases and assumptions can cloud the profiling process, too. For example, the author's own assumptions about human behavior and demographic traits can cloud judgment during an investigation. Criminal profiling can in some cases derail an investigation by diverting attention away from the actual perpetrator to focus on a false lead. Therefore, criminal profiling should be used cautiously.

5.…...

mla

3. Hormant & Kennedy (1998) provide a theoretical basis for profiling. The authors note that behavioral psychology provides a large part of the theoretical foundation for profiling. If human behavior can be loosely predicted, then so too can criminal behavior.

4. Criminal profiling is not one hundred percent accurate or valid. It is an inexact science. Results of profiling are close to chance, which is one reason why the process is criticized and used cautiously. Officers of the law may be misled by an inaccurate or hasty profile, and in some cases might even apprehend innocent persons because they meet the characteristics listed in the profile. Generalizations, stereotypes, and false conclusions can be drawn during the process of criminal profiling. Biases and assumptions can cloud the profiling process, too. For example, the author's own assumptions about human behavior and demographic traits can cloud judgment during an investigation. Criminal profiling can in some cases derail an investigation by diverting attention away from the actual perpetrator to focus on a false lead. Therefore, criminal profiling should be used cautiously.

5. Criminal profiling can be improved by incorporating psychological theories and principles. For example, behavioral psychology examines the patterns of human behavior that can be scientifically tested. The most basic of all behavioral psychological patterns is based o Pavlov's experiments, in which a stimulus evokes a predictable response in the subject. Even at more complex levels of psychology, behaviorism can be used to create criminal profiles. Traits about both victim and offender can be listed and then categorized to help investigators get a better idea of what took place before, during, and immediately after the crime. Cognitive psychology also has a role to play in criminal profiling. The ways that the perpetrator behaved offer clues to the way the perpetrator thought before, during, and after the criminal act.

(Holmes and Holmes 4)"
Like any other processes, systems, and/or methodologies, there are several ones involved also in criminal profiling. The two basic ones are criminal investigative analysis and behavioral evidence analysis. The former "employs the psychological typologies to organize information and construct a profile. The premise holds that elements of the crime scene represent the offender's personality and approach aims to provide the most likely characteristics, both personality and demographic, possessed by the unknown offender for the police investigation. (Young 15)." On the other hand, "behavioral evidence analysis also follows the belief that crime scene characteristics provide information about the offender, and uses a deductive, rather than inductive, approach (Young 17)." There are often conflicts as to which approach is better; however, the answer to this is usually dependent on the situation of crime on hand. Consequently, like any good criminal profiler, the type of analysis use should not…...

mla

Bibliography:

Holmes, Ronald M. And Stephen T. Holmes. Profiling Violent Crimes: An investigative Tool. 3rd. ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 2002. Print.

Muller, Damon A. "Criminal Profiling: Real Science or Just Wishful Thinking?" Homicide Studies 4.3 (2000): 234-264. Web. 12 Sep. 2011. .

Young, Theresa M., "Profiling Pros and Cons: An Evaluation of Contemporary Criminal Profiling Methods.." Honors Junior/Senior Projects: Paper 40. 28 Apr. 2006. Web. 12 Sep. 2011. .

One significant drawback of criminal profiling is the wide variation of results among profilers. Factors that affect this variation includes the difference in investigative background among profilers, which necessarily influences the profiling being done. The prove inconsistency among profiler results demonstrates a basic lack of validity (Young, 2006, p. 22).
Godwin (2002, p. 8) also notes that profiling serial murders generally lack a rigorous examination of existing data and contributing factors beyond case reports. In other words, the type and amount of data are insufficient to truly create an accurate profile of a serial murderer in any more than accidental terms.

Despite these drawbacks, there are also significant advantages to the criminal profiling process, one of which is the identification of signature behavior (Young, 2006). Such a typology can help investigators link apparently unrelated crimes by increasing the depth of the investigation. In turn, this will also result in greater ability…...

mla

References

Godwin, M. (2002). Reliability, Validity, and Utility of Criminal Profiling Typologies. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, Vol. 17, No. 1. Retrieved from:  http://www.drmauricegodwin.com/Dr.%20Godwin%20Profiling%20Article.pdf 

LaMance, K. (2011). Criminal Profiling Lawyers. LegalMatch. Retrieved from:  http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/criminal-profiling-lawyers.html 

Young, T.M. (2006, Apr. 28). Profiling pros and cons: an evaluation of contemporary criminal profiling methods. IRis. Retrieved from:  http://iris.lib.neu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039&context=honors_projects

But 50% the sample were recreational weightlifters who only used the drugs casually.
Purpose of use thus affected the frequency of use, and different kinds of illicit drugs were also associated with the different abuser profiles. From a criminal profiler's perspective, this suggests that, when examining who uses a particular performance-enhancing drug, a specific 'type' of athlete or non-athlete might be more likely to be associated with the drug, depending on his or her goals and sports. However, the difficulty of profiling substance abusers was admitted by the researchers, given that the model was too limited to have predictive validity, in terms of who would be more likely to abuse the drugs, based upon demographic and psychological characteristics. The study suggests that profiling substance abusers can be useful after the fact, but such studies often lack strong predictive abilities.

orks Cited

Hildebrandt, Thomas, James . Langenbucher, Sasha J. Carr, & Pilar Sanjuan.…...

mla

Works Cited

Hildebrandt, Thomas, James W. Langenbucher, Sasha J. Carr, & Pilar Sanjuan. (2007, Nov).

Modeling population heterogeneity in appearance -- and performance-enhancing drug

(APED) use: Applications of mixture modeling in 400 regular APED users. Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 116. 4: p. 717

Does Criminal Profiling Work or is it Unjustified The Case of Tim Masters Introduction
Criminal profiling allows law enforcement to develop their understanding of particular types of crime, criminals, criminal behaviors, and crime-ridden areas. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is one data set tool used in criminal profiling (FBI, 2019). However, criminal profiling is not an exact science but rather more of an art and there is a high degree of subjectivity that goes into creating a criminal profile. Thus, when it comes to the criminal profiling of serial killers, there are many factors that must be considered—biological, sociological, environmental, criminological, and psychological inputs. This paper will describe what is involved in the criminal profiling of serial killers, how the process works, who conducts it, what traits of serial killers profiles tend to focus on, and how effective the process is at helping law enforcement agents catch killers. It will…...

The fact that it is neither arbitrary nor motivated by atavistic animosity in a vacuum distinguishes this type of infringement from those that are absolutely impermissible in principle.
Conclusion:

In a wider perspective, the issue of police profiling is merely one type of constitutionally impermissible tactics that may require re-evaluation under the exigent circumstances posed by the prospect of continued domestic terrorism. More than one renowned legal authority (Dershowitz 2002) has suggested that extensive domestic terrorism justifies at least temporary suspension of other constitutional principles, such as torture.

However, unlike medieval authorities who implemented torture as punishment, the idea is that authorities may someday find themselves faced with the dilemma of an imminent large-scale terrorist attack of tremendous magnitude whose means of prevention beforehand is known to an individual in custody who refuses to divulge the information necessary to prevent the attack. Where casualties of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons may amount…...

mla

References

Caldero, M., Crank, J. (2004) Police Ethics the Corruption of the Noble Cause 2nd ed. Anderson Publishing.

Dershowitz, a. (2002) Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age. New York: Little Brown & Co.

Friedman, L. (2005) a History of American Law. New York: Touchstone Halbert, T., Ingulli, E. (2000) Law & Ethics in the Business Environment 3rd ed.

Cincinnati, OH: West Legal Studies

Types of Criminal Profiling According to Bartol & Bartol (2017), there are five broad categories of criminal profiling, but they are not mutually exclusive and are frequently used in tandem with one another to aid investigations. The first type of criminal profiling covered in the text is commonly referred to as psychological profiling: the profiling of known individuals like suspects. The goal of psychological profiling is risk or threat assessment: to determine how serious a person may be if they have threatened violence. Similarly, psychological profiling can be used on persons who have been flagged for violating social norms or who have acted out. As helpful as psychological profiling can be to investigators, it is important to note that the process can be misleading and even harmful to investigations (Sample, 2010). Psychological profiling methods are not necessarily grounded in research, and can lead to spurious results and prejudicial data.
The second type…...

Gang Involvement and Marginalization
Controversial statement: Individuals who gravitate towards gang involvement are often marginalized from acquiring the status in general in society via legitimate means, and their only option is to acquire status through illegitimate means

The issue of crime remains one of the most sensitive yet urgent issues that need to be addressed in the U.S. Many people have lost their lives or property in the hands of violent crime. The recording of crime has often been carried out by profiling the racial and economic background of suspected and convicted criminals. According to Hannon and DeFina, (2005) high criminal incidents are normally recorded among disproportionate ethnic groups such as Hispanics and African-Americans. They further add that high crime rates are common in areas with high levels of socio-economic disadvantage. This essay is a reaction to the controversial statement that "individuals involved in gangs are marginalized hence forcing them to acquire…...

mla

References

Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2004). "Crime in the United States 1993 -- 2012 uniform crime reports."Retrieved from www.fbi.gov

Hannon, L. & DeFina, R. (2005). "Violent Crime in African-American and White Neighborhoods: Is Poverty's Detrimental Effect Race-Specific?" Journal of Poverty 9(3): 49-67.

Ulmer, J.T., Harris, C.T. & Steffensmeier, D. (2012). "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Structural Disadvantage and Crime: White, Black and Hispanic Comparison," Social Science Quarterly, Volume 93, Southwestern Social Science Association

Criminal Profile Detroit
The population of young professionals in Downtown Detroit is increasing by the day and so is the retail of the region. There are many luxury buildings that have been built now. The development schemes towards the side of east river are now covering many luxury condominium progresses. This has resulted in attracting many young citizens to the Downtown of the city along with the renewed New Center and Midtown areas. According to a study that was conducted in the year 2007, it was found out that the residents of new downtown of Detroit were most young professionals. This meant that 57% of these people were aged between 25 to 34, 45% of them were graduates and 34% of them had obtained a master's level degree in their profession. There has been an ever increasing desire to live close to the urban areas and therefore has resulted in many…...

mla

References:

"Detroit crime rates and statistics." (2010) Neighborhood Scout.

"Detroit Area Employment." (2012) United States Department of Labor.

Criminal Profile
Tyrell "Tank" Williams; South Bronx, New York City

When asked why people call him Tank, Tyrell Benjamin Williams responded, "because I'm huge and you can't stop me." This attitude is clearly represented in Mr. Williams' lifestyle of street crime and drug dealing. Tyrell was born in the Stuyvesant district of Brooklyn, New York on a cold morning in January of 1984. He spent his very early years in a traditional family in this relatively pleasant neighborhood. Though on the eve of Williams' entry into kindergarten, his father informed his mother than he had found another woman and he was moving out. Tyrell recalls this as one of the most traumatic experiences of his young life. He remembers looking up to his father and wanting to make him proud. When asked about his feelings directly regarding this experience Mr. Williams said he was "heartbroken."

After the separation of his parents, Tyrell's mother…...

rown, in her biographic article for World of Forensic Science, states,
She views investigative criminal profiling as a dynamic process that does not conclude until a suspect is arrested and convicted. She deems it a support process for the criminal investigative team, made up of a combination of four skills: investigation, forensic analysis, psychological assessment, and the application of cultural anthropology. rown considers this type of profiling to be a real-time, speculative process requiring ongoing checking to avoid missing any significant data, and should never be done in isolation, but rather as one piece of the entire criminal investigative process (rown, ¶4).

rown works 'pro bono' on several cold case file crimes, trying to be closure for the family.

The profilers use a variety of known characteristics to start the profile. The years of research done by early profilers such as Douglas has enabled the profilers to obtain clearer pictures of the…...

mla

Bibliography

Brown, Pat. World of Forensic Science. Thomson Gale. 2005. HighBeam Research. 22 Jun.

2010 .

Cooper, Greg. The Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. The Forensic Examiner.

American College of Forensic Examiners. 2007. HighBeam Research. 22 Jun. 2010

e. height, weight, age, race, etc.), in connection with the investigation of specific criminal activity, that information allows authorities to narrow the search for individuals who match those identifying characteristics. The process is perfectly logical and obviously makes infinitely more sense than continuing to search for individuals who bear no resemblance to the descriptions provided by reliable sources.
However, the same legitimate techniques with respect to specific evidence of crimes also has a history of impermissible application in ways that deprive subjects of police investigation of their fundamental constitutional rights. For example, in the late 20th century, the U.S. Customs Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration both made extensive use of what they called "criminal indicators" in connection with their efforts to apprehend criminal drug traffickers as they attempted to enter the U.S. At the borders (Schmalleger, 2007).

Among other criteria, those sets of indicators including Hispanic origin and language, age range,…...

mla

References

Dershowitz, a. (2002) Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age. New York: Little Brown & Co.

Peak, K. (2002) Policing America: Methods, Issues, Challenges (Third Edition). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Schmalleger, F. (2007). Criminal Justice Today: An Introductory Text for the 21st Century. Hoboken, NJ: Prentice Hall

U.S. Institute of Justice and Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (1999) Police-Public Contact Survey; Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences; Mar 2004

Officers simply enter information on these cases and the program attempts to make possible connections to other entered data. (FI).
Clearly this program increases understanding of criminal typologies because it allows a law enforcement agency to find patterns in behavior across numerous jurisdictions. More so, it is an easy and efficient method of tracking criminals, including sex offenders, especially in cases that have gone unsolved for numerous years.

Modus Operandi Database

Modus Operandi, which means, "mode of operation" is used to describe a criminal's characteristic patterns and style of going about their criminal acts. It is often used in offender profiling as tracking the modus operandi often leads to clues involving the offender's psychology. A modus operandi database merely collects and organizes information on modus operandi, allowing law enforcement agencies to make connections to other agency information.

Such database programs clearly allows law enforcement agencies to increase their understanding of criminal typologies because…...

mla

Bibliography

FBI. Investigative Programs. www.fbi.gov.

Turvey, B.E. Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis. San Diego: Academic, 1999.

The perpetrator may even have a documented prior criminal history involving physical or sexual assaults of victims with some of the same characteristics as the current series of victims. More likely than not, the perpetrator is a product of a home in which children witnessed physical abuse of their mother and/or experienced physical abuse themselves.

The fact that all but one victim shows evidence that the force used in the murder far exceeded that necessary to achieve death by strangulation suggests that the perpetrator possesses a significant amount of anger, even rage, at someone represented by his victims. The fact that all but one of the victims suffered a broken neck suggests that the perpetrator is more likely under the age of 50 than older, and more likely either a large or physically robust individual or both. uggested Investigatory Focus:

Based on preliminary analysis of the behavioral evidence, it is suggested that…...

mla

Sources Consulted

Gerrig, R., Zimbardo, P. (2005) Psychology and Life 17th Edition. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Innes, B. (2007) Serial Killers: The Stories of History's Most Evil Murderers. London: Quercas.

Schmalleger, F. (2001) Criminal Justice Today: An Introductory Text for the 21st Century. Hoboken, NJ: Prentice Hall

Serial killers are a topic that has fascinated people, beginning before the term was even coined.  They have been romanticized in pop culture, but their crimes seem to be rooted in a personality disorder that keeps them from empathizing with others.  They kill in a variety of ways and, when left unchecked, the number of people that they can kill can get into the 100s. 

Some subtopics to consider when writing about serial killers for your essay topic are:

1. The role of Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) in serial murders.
2. Psychopath or sociopath?  Where on the spectrum of personality....

Criminal investigation is a broad field of study that covers any and all of the elements that go into solving a crime and building a legal case against the suspects.  Considered one of the applied sciences, there are actually several career paths for the criminal investigator.  Likewise, people from different disciplines may find themselves doing criminal investigative work.  For example, as science has evolved, the role of geneticists and genetic genealogists in criminal investigation and forensic science has really explored. 

When writing your paper, you have two distinct approaches you can take.  You can write a....

Forensic psychology refers to applying psychology to legal issues.  Forensic psychology can be applied to civil and criminal legal cases but is most commonly associated with criminal cases.

Ten possible essay topics / titles for forensic psychology are:

1. Future Dangerousness: Can Forensic Psychologists Assess Future Risk
2. Beyond Criminal Profiling: How Forensic Psychologists Help Law Enforcement
3. Legally Crazy Versus Mentally Ill
4. Victim Profiling: What Makes Some People Targets
5. The Psychology of Policing
6. Best Interests of the Child: How Forensic Psychologists Can Help in Child Custody Cases
7. Inherently Unreliable: The Problem with Eyewitness Testimony
8. Undeveloped Brains: Why Juveniles Should Not Be in the....

Unveiling the Macabre: The Enigma of Global Ted Bundy

1. Ted Bundy: The Transnational Predator
- Delve into Bundy's global reach and its implications for criminal profiling.

2. The Shadow of Bundy: Fear on a Global Scale
- Explore the international fear and hysteria surrounding Bundy's crimes.

3. Bundy Beyond Borders: A Psychological Odyssey
- Investigate the psychological factors that drove Bundy's crimes across continents.

4. The Bundy Effect: Global Implications for Criminal Justice
- Analyze the impact of Bundy's case on global criminal justice practices and policies.

5. Chasing the Shadow: Ted Bundy's International Manhunt
- Detail the complex and intricate international manhunt that....