I found this website by the Amercian Psychology Association (APA). The website first talks about George Metesky from New York who was convicted of planting bombs in New York in the 1940's and 50's. It tells how the police went to psychiatrist James Brussel to help come up with a description of the person who was planting these bombs. Brussel's description ended up leading police to Metesky who was then arrested for his crimes. The website also goes into how profiling works, psychology contributions, and how the psychology and law enforement relationship works. This website is actually about the magazine called Monitor on Psychology. This magazine is published by the APA. Below is the front cover of the magazine that this article was featured in. This magazine talks about a number of subjects and from this website you can gain access to other articles from the Monitor.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/criminal.aspx
I believe that criminal profiling is one of the best ways to relate both psychology and law together. For example the article mentions how the FBI developed its behavioral and science unit in order for them to get helpful information on serial rape and homicide cases. Within that unit two FBI Agents came up with the “organized and disorganized dichotomy.” Organized criminals plan everything and leave little evidence. Disorganized criminals do their crime within a pulse and leave all kinds of finger prints and blood trailing behind. As I kept reading this article it made me see more and more how human kind, and especially victims/the victim’s family benefit from psychology and law when put together.
This criminal profiling technique is something that previously I did not have a lot of information about. I definitely do not consider myself a crime buff, and have just a passive interest in shows like Law and Order, or CSI. However, these profiling techniques are quite intriguing to me. It is an incredible psychological technique. Like I said, I did not know very much about this part of crime investigation, however, this changed when I picked up the book Mind Hunter for this class. The book is written by John Douglas, who helped found the FBI’s leading profiling institute. Douglas has had several characters in movies modeled after him, such as Jack Crawford in Silence of the Lambs. The book takes a fantastic look into the minds of serial killers and other criminals, as well as the techniques often used to identify them. I would strongly recommend reading this book if this is something you find interesting.
It is amazing what these experts can predict just by looking at the crime scene. They can often infer where the suspect lives, his or her age, gender, which they live with, roughly their personality, and what kind of car they have, if they have one. Although the article did not mention it, many people, including Douglas in Mind Hunter, claim that Brussel predicted what Metesky would be wearing correctly (a double-breasted suit). In the book, Douglas himself accurately predicted a serial killer to have a stutter, or some form of speech impediment simply by looking at the killers crime scenes. Again, this is a fascinating technique, and these are just a few of the amazing examples of how effective profiling can be.