Profiling due Thursday 2/23 @ midnight

Based on your reading of Chapter 5, what really IS profiling? What are the myths about profiling? How accurate is the profiling information in the above sources?

I think an appropriate definition of profiling is the collecting of evidence about a criminal at a crime scene,studying and observing that crime scene and others done that are similiar and may be related to that same one, and making educated predictions about the type of person that may have committed these crimes for the purpose of finding suspects that match the description and eventually narrowing it down to the actual perpetrator. This is especially useful when there are no suspects to begin with or you have an idea but need something to link that person to the crime and create a motive for them to have done it. By profiling the crime scene and determining what type of person may have done this, you are able to make comparisons on some suspects you hopefully already have.

Certain myths about profiling are simple mistakes that many people probably get from TV shows that depict profiling as an easy thing that is always 100% spot on and makes catching the criminal quick and painless. In reality, profiling takes serious training and observation, and even then only about half the time are they predictions actually right. Profiling takes being able to make specific inferences about a person as well, not general things such as, "he is shy". This may be true, but it is also true for a lot of people, so something more specific like, "he is probably tall and athletic, blends in well in a crowd, appears to be friendly and family oriented, holds a steady job, probably a home-owner, and an outgoing Christian man whom people respect", is a much better profile because it is very specific and tells about multiple characteristics this man may have. Including things such as job, residence and activities such as "involved in the church" or "a business man at a prestigous company" give better clues about where to start looking. However, clues like this about a person can also be hard to tell, especially when you're just going off of a crime scene, which is why it takes an especially skilled and trained professional to do this type of work. And as I said before, even they can be wrong sometimes. Profiling is simply trying your absolute best to come up with a description of a person, profilers are not psychics (although some may have psychic abilities), and cannot pin-point exactly who the perpetrator is, unfortunately. If it were that easy, we would not have so many open cases or cases that are unsolved.

I think the above sources are appropriate one for profiling. They give respectable descriptions about profiling and how it is used, as well as some insight into how it is done. The third one especially talks about the models and methods they have developed for profiling, including offender profiling and crime action profiling. The first website also discusses two forms of profiling, deductive and inductive, which is something we hear a lot about in the social sciences and doing research. Which brings me back to my point that profiling is a science that takes lots of training and expertise. The second website provides cases where profiling was used, I thought these were neat to read about and see how investigators used the evidence found at the crime scene to create a profile for the criminal.

Overall, profiling is something that is extremely interesting and intrigues many. However, like many things involved in the crime world, it is often exaggerated and made out to seem like an easy and uncomplicated job. Doing this research has helped me see what profiling is all about and the amount of work it takes to be one. I have the utmost respect for those that have successfully made it in the profiling world.

Profiling is a very complex type of forensic discipline. I would say that a best way to define what profiling really is would be to give its comprehensive explanation. Profiling is the discipline used by investigation officials in which inferences are made about a suspects personality, geographic area, and tendencies based upon the implications of a crime scene such as techniques used, body placements/positions, and overall organization of suspect. This technique is particularly applied to criminals who commit sexual assaults or multiple murders. Profiling is essential usually in these instances where little is known about a suspect or there are no witness accounts.
The method of profiling began almost over a century ago, but really became a primary method of investigation in the 1950s. Profiling is of great importance to investigations that involve high interest criminals who manage to leave no trace evidence behind, and effective profiling can lead to a more concentrated investigation.

Myths about profiling can be found in numerous examples throughout the media in movies, tv shows, and even literature. Shows like "Criminal Minds" embellish the profiling process. In examples like this profiling is relatively quick process that is completed in a ten minute meeting and usually ends in apprehension of a perpatrator twenty four hours later. This is unrealistic for many reasons. First, profiling is highly involved discipline that requires years of training and in most cases an extensive education history in psychology. Another inconsistency is that profiling is not always completely accurate. Inaccurate profiling can lead to problems like tunnel vision or stereotyping in which the investigation may focus so hard on a profile that it overlooks that actual perpatrator. Myths about profiling are vast, but that does not dispute the fact that it as an investigation tool can be extremely useful in the field.

The sources above offer information about profiling that for the most part has already been presented in chapter 5 of C&K. The first source gives some general information about the discipline of profiling. Interestingly, this source explains the process of both inductive profiling, assuming criminals who commit a certain crime have similar backgrounds, and deductive profiling, involves setting up a profile of the criminal's actions before during and after a crime. The information in the first source is accurate in that it gives a general outlook on profiling.

The second source is accurate, but it mostly discusses how profiling was used in famous cases of serial killers and other sadists (Adolf Hitler). This source is not particulary helpful in that it will briefly explain the dynamics of profiling in between discussing the profiles of such famous cases. However, I must admit that the profile on Adolph Hitler that was constructed during the war was really interesting. This source may offer some interesting information on famous cases, but it does not provide great detail about the actual profiling process.

The third source is probably the most informative and accurate of the three. This source discusses the relationship between investigator profiles and psychological evaluation of said profiles. Something of particular interest that this source explores is how most serial killers fit into the organized killers category. It is only in the nature of the crime that can classify a killer disorganized, and in some fashion all killers display disorganized behavior in this state. Source three also talks about the how the relationship between FBI and psychological experts is becoming more united in the search for these offenders. In fact, the FBI employs multiple PhD clinical psychologists as advisors in these unique cases. Overall, the sources offer some form of accuracy in describing the profiling process, but the third source clearly demonstrates the best credibility.

To my understanding, profiling is trying to create a description of a criminal based on crime scenes and other evidence. A main goal of profiling is trying to establish a signature of the criminal so if they were to commit a similar crime they would know it's the same person based on their signature. By creating a profile it can help police officers and detectives narrow down their search to look for specific characteristics of a criminal and help rule out some other characteristics that don't fit the description.
The first source from above just gives some basic definitions on psychological profiling and also talks about two types of profiling. The first is inductive profiling which is when a criminal commits a crime, they will have similar motives and background information as those who have committed similar crimes. The other type of profiling discussed is deductive profiling. This is profiling that avoids generalizations and averages. This is based on the criminals actions before, during, and after the crime. I would say overall that this source is pretty accurate because it gives simple and basic definitions of types of profiling.
The second source given isn't very helpful when it comes to explaining how profiling works or the ins and outs of it but it gives examples of where profiling was used in famous cases such as The Black Dahlia. This source obviously has some accuracy to it but it shows much of what was correct about certain profiles and not what was inaccurate.
The third source from above talks about how profiling works and what the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI does. It talks about how FBI agents have an insight to the personality of a criminal through four crime phases. There's the antecedent, which is what was going on with the criminal before committing the crime, the method and manner which is how did the criminal commit the crime and what does of victims did they select, the third is body disposal which is pretty self explanatory but one main point is whether or not the crime and body are still together or if the body was dumped somewhere different than the crime itself, and the last one is postoffensive behavior which is how does the criminal act after the crime and after some media and investigation has taken place. I think this is a pretty accurate article overall.
These three sources along with the book help explain the details of profiling and how it works however there are still myths to profiling. I think that profiling has been very dramatized and made to look easy and very effective due to Hollywood. Shows such as "Criminal Minds" make it seem that profiling works most of the time when the reality is not that at all. The research on profiling has been slow to develop so there's not much to go off of to say for certain whether or not profiling is helpful. Some people may think that profiling is effective if part of a profile is correct but there are many parts of a profile that are very inaccurate and can lead detectives and police officers in the wrong direction.

According to Chapter 5, profiling is the process of drawing inferences about a criminal’s personality, behavior, motivation, and demographic characteristics based on crime scenes and other evidence. Profilers are looking for patterns and signatures between each of the crimes committed, so that they can predict future behaviors of the criminal. If profilers can better understand and predict the perpetrator, the better chance they have of capturing him/her.

There are a lot of myths about profiling, largely due to the television shows and movies that glamorize the profiling process. Many shows imply that profiling is ALWAYS used in every case. This is not necessarily the truth. Of course police are always looking for clues that can tell them more about their suspect, but they aren’t necessarily coming up with a huge criminal profile. Some shows make it seem like the investigators are always 100% accurate on their predictions about the perpetrator. More often, police make errors and incorrect assumptions. We don’t have the exact statistics of how often profiling is accurate, but investigators are human and they are likely to make mistakes. They only have previous evidence to base their conclusions on and as more crimes are committed, the better they can personalize and improve their information.
Not everybody in the FBI is a forensic profiler, and just because somebody studied psychology, it doesn’t mean they automatically have the ability to profile somebody. Often TV shows exaggerate the capabilities of profiling. Often times the TV shows show the investigators getting a couple insignificant clues and then suddenly they’re already narrowing the suspect down to a few people.
When thinking about criminal profiling, the first show that comes to mind is Criminal Minds. I think this show is definitely guilty of exaggerating the capabilities of profiling. This show makes it seem that they can come up with a completely accurate profile in just a matter of seconds, and yet all their information is completely based on assumptions. It’s entertaining, nonetheless, but not so much an accurate portrayal of how real investigators create a profile.

I believe all three of the sources you listed are fairly accurate with their information. The first link was one I found when researching on my own for the previous blog. It contains a few bits of information that may be a tad too generalized, but for the most part it contains accurate information on profiling.
The second link was more about entertaining people and fascinating them with the idea of criminal profiling. This website discussed famous cases in which criminal profiling was used, and all the information I saw seemed to be correct. I liked how it included interviews with people who have experience with criminal profiling.
The third link was probably the most accurate out of all three. This website talked about the history of profiling and how it is more of an art than a science. It also discussed how it has gained popularity recently due to TV shows and movies like “Silence of the Lambs”. The FBI has different names for what they’re doing; some call it “criminal investigative analysis”, “investigative psychology”, and “crime action profiling”.

In general, profiling can best be described as the analysis of information gathered from evidence to make informed hypotheses about someone’s (a criminal’s) personality, characteristics, and motive. A profiler uses many different clues from the crime, crime scene, and victim to help create this idea about the perpetrator.

One of the definite myths about profiling is that it works, and it works well. Not to deny that profiling has definitely had its uses in various cases, but sometimes profiling can cause more harm than good by leading officers down wrong paths of investigation, for instance. In other cases, sometimes the profile is beneficial simply because it led officers to retrace their steps or check something out that they should have taken care of initially.

Many myths are the byproduct of t.v. shows and various programs created for a crime infatuated society. While general inferences about the some of the likely characteristics of a killer can be determined without a whole lot of time and effort, the in-depth somewhat psychic seeming profiles that are given by characters of t.v. are often very unrealistic. Obviously, it’s impossible to show the case as it would progress in real time, however it does seem as though profilers and t.v. can pull things out of nowhere with hardly any time spent immersed in the evidence. This is not to say, however that everything portrayed in the media is totally wrong. Profiling can be helpful, and John Douglas himself admits in his book that not just anyone can be a good profiler-- you have to have good instincts.

The first link, while very it explained profiling very briefly seemed to be quite accurate. One of the most specific things that it noted correctly was difference between organized and disorganized criminals. It cited similar traits associated with each as was found in chapter five of our text. From various things that I’ve read, this link really seems to state very succinctly various things that generally hold true about profiling and crimes. The point here, however, is that it states these things very generally and doesn’t really acknowledge so much that fact that not every crime or criminal is the same and deviations often do exist. The part about serial killers is also pretty much true. The book I read for my book report was by John Douglas (one of the creators of the FBI’s profiling system), and he goes over this in much more detail in his book about motive.

I thought the second link gave a very interesting insight into parts of the true inner workings of investigating a case. It doesn’t really differentiate between profiling in different situations, though it was still very intriguing. The third source seemed to be the most correct and information of the three given. I would say that because it comes from the APA it is pretty much automatically a ways a head in the reliability department. It talked a lot about the same things that the book went over, such as the history of profiling, how different crimes may be profiled different, and the relationship between psychology and law which I thought was pretty cool since that is the whole point of this class.

Overall, the links were mostly accurate though at times they fell into the realm of stereotyping or generalizing certain types of crimes or criminals, but it’s hard not to do that because there are many similarities between the people who commit similar crimes. What is most important to remember is that no one person is the same, just as no on crime is the same, thus profiling will have to keep evolving to accommodate these needs.

I believe that both the Chapter 5 reading and the links above were fairly accurate about what profiling is. I would describe profiling as investigating common features of the crime to create who the “typical” suspect would be. Based on the type of crime, what kinds of similar charachteristics did most other people convicted of this crime in the past have in common? Through the use of profiling, law enforcement personnel try to figure out what kind of person would commit the crime. They are also interested in how the crime took place. For example, if someone stole all the women’s care products from a Target store, a profiler might assume that the suspect is a female. As far as for more serious crimes, for instance a serial killer, they might look for someone who has been abused in the past or use to harm animals. I think that most of the information from the links can also be found in the chapter. I enjoyed the TruTV link, as that is one of my favorite channels. I enjoyed the Jack the Ripper link on the TruTV page and how after he was never caught; the job of profiling was taken from law enforcement and given to psychology. Although it is a very fun channel to watch, we must be cautious, as some of the information presented may not be completely accurate. For example, the show “Cops” is obviously somewhat real, but also a bit tainted. The show does not show the police officers in their offices doing paperwork like most police officers do many days.

The first link, thinkquest.org, also had some great information. I liked this website because it described the different types of profiling such as deductive and inductive. Inductive involves assuming that the perpetrator probably is very similar to other people who have committed the same crime, whereas deductive involves figuring out how and why the crime took place based on the evidence that is at the crime scene.

One interesting thing that I learned in the third link was that before profiling, many detectives had to rely on their instincts in regards to catching a criminal. This could sometimes be a good thing, but it could also be very difficult. I think one way that it may be good is that tunnel vision would not happen as much because law enforcement doesn’t just have a list of characteristics that the criminal should have, but they have to think about each case separately. It would also be very difficult because if you were the detective, you would be responsible for deciding what kind of person would commit this crime.

There are many myths regarding profiling that can be seen on many television shows. One example that I can think of is “Criminal Minds.” This is a great show and very entertaining, but at the same time it is not completely accurate. It makes profiling seem so exciting, which I’m sure it is at times. Although it can be exciting at times, it cannot be as exciting everyday as they make it look like on television. Another myth that is often seen regarding to profiling is the fact that sometimes TV shows make it seem as if it is a very easy job, and that it is a very quick process. In reality, profiling is not a quick and easy job and sometimes requires a great deal of time.

My understanding of profiling is a collection of information to assist in the identification and location of the perpetrator. Investigators analyze evidence and crime scenes to gain this information. This information is used to create a profile, which can help give the investigators a description of the person they are looking for. By using geographic profiling the investigators can predict the future location of where they may be able to locate the perpetrator.

The first source listed was interesting, yet it was brief. It seemed to give some basic information. It also covered some of the information that was also covered in the book. It covers what psychological profiling is, the facts about psychological profiling, why criminals commit crimes, the difference between inductive and deductive profiling, and also briefly discusses serial killers. I found the information on inductive and deductive profiling to be interesting because I did not have a good understanding before I looked at this source. Inductive reasoning is based on the assumption that the criminal will have a similar background to other criminals that have committed the same crime. Deductive profiling involves avoiding generalizations and focuses on the criminals actions. I believe that the information provided in this source was accurate, but I would describe it as short and to the point.

The second source was just about the opposite of the first. It was also interesting; however, it was much longer. I really enjoyed the use of relating the information to cases. I believe that this information was accurate as well. It was more presented by its usefulness rather than by definition.

The third source gave a lot of information about the history of profiling. This was the most detailed source involving psychology. It dedicated a section to psychology’s contributions to profiling. It describes various kinds of profiling such as offender profiling and crime action profiling. It also describes the connection between psychology and law enforcement. I believe that this site also provides accurate information about profiling.

I believe that there are some myths about profiling that are especially portrayed by the media. For example, many crime TV shows, such as criminal minds, show that profiling is always correct and leads directly to the perpetrator. However, what it does not show is how difficult profiling is for the profiler, and more than that it does not show how sometimes the profiles are not exactly correct. It also does not always lead the investigators directly to the perpetrator.

Profiling if done by the F.B.I. or another person or agency that has been properly trained to analyze evidence and draw conclusions from them. They are very smart and have seen a lot of things over their careers in order to be able to even feel comfortable trying to make a decision that could throw an investigation completely off course. It takes a long time for a profile to be made no matter what the its being made for. People are not just throwing guesses out on the table just to be able to have something to go on.

On myth about profiling that everyone knows is the the media doesn't really do it any justice. even though it is entertaining to watch especially when your really into that kind of stuff. But realistic the time in which they solve their cases is totally unrealistic, and the crimes that they deal don't usually happen on the daily basis and surely not in the frequency that the depict on television. The methods that they use to are usually bogus, most of them don't even exist. Especially when they are trying to find a serial killer; the reason they haven't caught him already is because he isn't leaving any evidence behind most of the time but some how they always seem to come up with something on television.

Based on your reading of Chapter 5, what really IS profiling? What are the myths about profiling? How accurate is the profiling information in the above sources?

Based on chapter 5, profiling is a way of investigating by means of crime scene analysis and signatures of the crime to narrow down or discover the suspect(s). A newer tool, called geographic profiling, facilitates criminal profiling today.

The first website's (http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/00206/nts_psychological_profiling.htm) first paragraph states, "...it provides an accurate way of guiding the direction, in which an investigation heads toward." The "accurate" part of this statement is not always true. More often than not they are inaccurate. Other than that, the information seemed to be a brief summary of parts of the chapter in our book.

The site, (http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/profiling/index.html) was very interesting because it provided specific interviews with people and described different cases.

The last site I reviewed, (http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/criminal.aspx) described what is called investigative psychology. Which just seems to be how psychology is contributing to criminal profiling without calling it that. The site describes how criminal profiling began by them just "hoping they were right (based off their experiences and investigations) more than they were wrong". Psychology is now providing FBI agents with new diagnostic approaches. I also found it interesting how the site described the relationship between those involved in psychology and those in law enforcement.

After reading Chapter 5, my definition of criminal profiling is describing the criminal based an analyzing their behavior as well as their thought processes during the crime. The people doing the profiling are given records and files which provide information about the cases. This allows the profiler to get a sense of how the criminal acts. The way he or she acts can provide hints. If they commit more than one crime, such as killing, they may be patterns. These patterns can help describe the type of person who is killing.

The first site we were given was quite interesting. It described some facts. The information they gave about profiling was similar to what was presented in our textbook. They describe profiling as looking at the person's behavior, motive, and their background. I thought it was interesting when they described how "offender's who repeatedly kill are driven by a heightened public fear for their actions and media." (http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/00206/nts_psychological_profiling.htm) This site also described to ways of profiling: inductive and deductive. Inductive profiling occurs when investigators assume that whenever a killer commits his crime, it will follow the same path as previous killers. The example they gave was men who rape white women are most likely themselves white. This idea was based on past crimes. Most crimes are inter-racial. Deductive profiling, on the other hand, avoids making those assumptions.

I was not a fan of the second site. It described some cases such as The Black Dahlia and Jack the Ripper, but everything was so long and in chapters. The third source given to us was also interesting. It started out by describing the case of the Mad Bomber. This case demonstrated using psychology to help with profiling. The psychologist assigned to this case made an accurate profile. Most of it was common sense and could be determined by examining the case closer, but other parts were based on his psychological knowledge. The site talks about how in recent years the FBI has been hiring more forensic psychologists. One of the last sentences on this site is that psychology and law enforcement will continue to work together.

I think one common and very big myth is that profiling always works. We see this all the time on television. One of my favorite shows is Law and Order SVU and the forensic psychologist on the show makes many profiles. Most if not all of the profiles he makes turn out to be right and lead the police to the right criminal. This is a myth because profiling can lead to the conviction of an innocent person. This is devastating when this happens. Not only does it ruin that person's life, their family is put through a lot and it is hard on them, and also, this means that the real criminal is out there and the victim never got true justice.

After reading chapter 5, my definition of profiling was using evidence and reasoning to identify traits about a criminal's demographic, motivation, and behavior. Profilers use trace evidence, crime scenes, and similar cases to try to understand the criminal. It's almost as if they are trying to get into their minds. They want to know who they are, why they committed the crime, where are they likely to strike next and so forth. Profiling becomes most effective when there is a serial offender, meaning they commit the same crime repeatedly. Profilers would be more effective in those situations because they have more information to work from, which may or may not include a signature from the culprit.
The most prominent myth about profiling comes from media like TV shows and movies where they depict profiling as 100% correct, 100% of the time. This is certainly not true. There are few people (only about 12 in the FBI) who are trained in profiling, and even those who are rigorously trained in the field will not always be accurate. Profiling isn't an exact science. Most profiles are made based on educated guesses and similar situations that have already happened. Because most of a profile is guessing, whether educated or not, profilers are susceptible to making assumptions based on stereotypes and bias instead of hard evidence. Profiling can also be dangerous if the law enforcement relies too heavily on them. They can start only looking for suspects who match a profiler's description, a behavior called "tunnel vision." This can be exceptionally dangerous because when law enforcement doesn't keep an open mind, innocent people get convicted and guilty people can slip away untouched.
I feel like the websites were accurate in their information about profiling and the myths associated with them. They also added to the information I knew about profiling. For example, the first website included two different types of profiling - inductive and deductive. Inductive profiling basically means basing a profile on similar previous cases. Like inductive reasoning, it starts with a large idea and focuses in onto one particular suspect. This would be a good approach to use when the investigators didn't have any suspects.
Deductive profiling starts "at the source," if you will, and branches out. With the deductive approach, profilers meticulously investigate the crime scene and background of a suspect in order to dissect their motivation and behavior during the crime as well as attempt to figure out what they will do next. This would be the type of profiling that would be effective when the investigators have a suspect.
The second website had several different articles about profiling, including information about serial killers, geographic profiling, and victimology. I thought the victimology section was a particularly interesting form of profiling because it tells something about the killer by finding a common factor in all the victims. This is something you see on a lot of crime shows, but it was interesting to see the real thing.
The third article spoke about criminal profiling and the psychological influences involved in it. One new thing they included was information on investigative psychology. When using investigative psychology, investigators are trying to discern characteristics about a perpetrator based on their behavior during a crime. It also focuses more on empirical research than on experience, making it sound like inductive profiling.
Overall I thought all three websites included accurate and interesting information about profiling, as well as adding new information that our textbook didn't include.

Profiling is a specific field that takes many years to master. It is the gathering of evidence about a criminal from the crime scene. Some pieces of evidence that might be taken from the crime scene would be the location/area, characteristics of the victim, how the crime was committed, and even what type of weapon was used. One main thing to point out is that every little detail is important to build this profile about the criminal. Most of these profiles take place against serial killers and other serious offenders. Now the myths are almost pretty obvious. As you see on television it always seems that the profiler is able to make the right prediction right away. Another thing is that the shows make it seem like every detective can just profile right when they get to the scene. The fact of the matter is that this is a very specific field that is hard to be mastered.

Now going through the sources I found that the first one was a legitimate source. Its starts off by giving the basic definition of profiling but then it goes into some detail about how they are able to profile serial killers. They found out that most serial killers were abused as youngsters or are just psychologically strained that makes them the person they are. Then they go into the motives of the people they are able to profile. These motives that they list are mainly how those people were socialized by their personal experiences. My favorite of all of the sources would be the last one. It showed that profiling can be used by common sense and basic history of other criminals. But it also shows that it can used very broadly because it has very little restrictions on it. By this I mean that there are a lot of different ways you can look at the crime scene or go through the evidence that might give you a certain clue to catch the suspect. The reason why I like this article the best is that it describes how they came up with different categories of offenders. What they did was in 1974 FBI agents interviewed 36 serial murders to create different categories to help profile. What this allows people in today’s age is that it gives them a firm ground on how to maybe start their profile. But what it also does is allows them to further define these categories with new information that will end up helping investigations as well as future investigations.

Profiling is a means of creating the person behind the killings based on crime scene information, witness reports, locations of killings, victim personality, and similar tendencies in every crime. Profilers look at similarities between each crime scene to help identify tendencies the killer will do to portray his or her identity. The profiler will look at how the victims were killed/raped or both to help determine the personality of the killer. The profiler will take into effect the location and patterns of the killings as well as the background of the victims in order to put together a "profile" or identity of the perpetrator. Many times the profiler can determine the behaviors, physical characteristics like age, race, strength, etc. and what types of jobs the killer possesses. Profiling takes all of the evidence and connects certain behaviors together to create the identity of the perpetrator to help the investigators find the criminal. Many times the profiler will come into effect when the investigators want a helping hand from the community to keep an eye out for the perpetrators in the community.

A myth about profiling I often come across is the accuracy of the profilers. Many believe profilers to be 100% accurate in their descriptions when really they do not honestly know for a fact if those descriptions are correct or not, they are merely assumptions. The profiler may be correct on some descriptions and wrong on other descriptions but that only helps the profiler for the next case that comes along. There are myths from TV shows expecting the profiler to always nail the person and knowing who did it and finding that person in a short amount of time. Profiling takes a lot of research into the crime. Also, profilers are expected to know exactly what happened at a crime scene and by whom just by walking into the crime scene. Profilers have to look through many documents and study the behaviors of the killer, the items and backgrounds of the victims and so forth, causing the process to take longer than people think.

The first website did a good job at explaining the overall general idea of profiling without going into too much detail of each aspect. I did learn about inductive and deductive profiling more through this website. I learned inductive is more assuming and generalizing when deductive profiling studies the subjects in detail and adapting the profile when new findings arise on the crime. I also learned serial killers will stick within their comfort zone and more than likely not travel to great lengths to commit the crime where they do not know the environment.

The second website proved very interesting to me to read. It went into detail about stories of different cases of profiling. The crimes were different and it was interesting on how the profilers went about studying each case and coming up with the profile of the killer based on the situations. Each crime was different and it was interesting to see the type of murders and murderers there were for each case.

The third website was interesting on how it went into describing who came up with different profiling techniques such as David Canter who came up with offender profiling and investigative psychology. I enjoyed at the end of the article when it described the relationship between psychology and law. Some tension is still in the midst when it boils down to the two coming together but it has come a long way throughout the years. It was cool to find out a psychologist is the chief of the Behavioral Science Unit at the FBI.

Profiling is a vital part of the legal system. It helps us figure out what types of people commit certain types of crimes. There is a lot of information out on the web about profiling and how accurate it is but not all of the information given is factual.

There are many myths about profiling. Many people believe that profilers are always 100% right when they come to their assumptions about what type of person would have commited a crime, which is false. For example, a man was falsely accussed of being the Olympic Bomber because he worked in the building, but in fact it was a completely different person. A profiler cannot just know what type of a person commited a crime with just one look at a crime scene. They have to go through all the evidence, look at the crime scene multiple times, and study many behaviors to pinpoint a certain type of person.

The first website was I think the most informative. It gave you the definition of profiling as well as different types of profiling. It also talked about the actual facts of profiling instead of just myths.

The second source was pretty dumb I thought. I dont think it gave very valid information. I wouldn't trust this website if I had to write a paper or do a project on profiling because it really doesn't give you any facts or information about the subject.

The third source was very interesting. It not only gave valid descriptions of profiling but it also gave examples to help support it's information. I think it is interesting to read about the old high profile cases because it is interesting to find out how they figured out who the criminal was.

Based on your reading of Chapter 5, what really IS profiling? What are the myths about profiling? How accurate is the profiling information in the above sources?

The definition of profiling is the process of drawing inferences about a criminal's personality, behavior, motivation, and demographic characteristics based on crime scenes and other evidence. What this means to me is that profiling is a strategy to pinpoint the characteristics of a criminal by studying the crime scene and applying previous information leared from other crime scenes to map out the criminal they are trying to capture. Obviously the information could be incorrect but that is the best conclusion they could come up with, with the evidence given. Profiling is typically used to descrice the physical appearance, personality, and characteristics of a criminal that no one has seen yet. However, profiling can still also be used when the criminal or serial killer has been seen in order to fill in the missing gaps.

The term profiling itself is a myth. The word profiling came from Hollywood and media. Criminal Investigative analysis is the real name that the actual FBI uses. I find that very interesting that even the book would lable it profiling instead of the actual name Criminal Investigative analysis. There are steps that are taken while criminal investigative analysists are profiling. The information it portrays is accurate. But there is also stereotypes that the media and hollywood create or makes popular in order to capture their audience. For instance how they speed up the process of Crime scene investigations that could take months to even years. But the are solved in one episode. Which makes people underestimate the amount of time it takes to solve a murder, crime, etc.

I feel that the information in these articles are accurate. It describes how the process works and the amount of instances that help support the growing field of profiling. I also thought it was interesting when the article stated that profiling is a mixture of psychology and law enforcement. That is very true. The psychology is used to find the before and after information of the crime and to also understand the process that occur during. The law's role is created by people who think differently, live different life styles, and still create crimes. The act of crime is what triggered the idea of profiling.

Based on my chapter five reading, I would define profiling as describing a person and their actions they have done to create an insight to who truly could be a killer. Behaviors and motivations are key to a profiler to determine what or how they could possibly think. Scene clues, background history, and personality clues are all obtained as an inference on a possible killer. One of the big things to not get lazy on in my opinion would be overlooking details that may not seem so big, but instead search out clues that could be seen in your everyday atmosphere. An example would be from the silence of the lambs, where the serial killer had his own place, for his own private life, in an Illinois town, and he seemed to fit in with the rest of his neighborhood just fine. Personality characteristics and the location of the killers possible next move can be applied here.

Myths about profiling are typically found in many things, tv shows, movies, and media that we see these days. SVU would be an example of this where profiling is done on a quicker step, where they pull in all the information and find out who committed the crime, by who fits the description in the one hour viewing we can watch in a one sitting. Which is very unrealistic. Profiling involves a whole lot of training and discipline throughout many years of extensive education history in psychology. The accuracy of these shows are way off based on what really happens. Where there are usually a lot of inconsistency were profiling is concerned for the investigation that concerns catching the wrong suspect and letting the actual perpetrator roam free. Myths linked with profiling are vast, however they are a great investigation tool that are very helpful in the field.

The first source gives information that deals with discipline of profiling. Inductive profiling and deductive profiling are brought up where inductive deals with assuming the criminals have similar backgrounds if they commit a similar crime, and deductive is a profile of the criminal’s actions that happen both before and after a crime. This information in the first source comes across as accurate because it gives a general description on profiling for discipline.

The second source goes into talking about profiling that have been used on more famous cases of serial killers, like Jack the Ripper and Adolf Hitler. It very quickly goes into a small amount of detail on the dynamics of profiling between profiles of famous cases. These sources seemed to give interesting information out on famous cases, however it didn’t really provide the greatest of detail when it comes down to the process of profiling. But I would say for the most part this source is accurate, just not as helpful enough for a profiling case.

The third source goes into detail about the relationship between investigator profiles and psychological evaluation of profiles. Organized and disorganized killers are brought up here. Usually most serial killers are able to fit right into the organized killer category. Only when the nature of the crime is committed can a killer be consider a disorganized one. Also, FBI and psychological experts are starting to be on the same page when they are in search of the offenders. This is probably the most accurate of the three sources when it comes to describing the process of profiling.

2.23.2012
Psychology and Law Blog
Based on Chapter 5 in C&K I would say that profiling is investigating or gathering data about someone (in these cases serial killer’s). These data include personality, behavior, motivation, geographic location and evidence (crime scene and autopsy). Profiling as I understood it is when a crime is committed the investigators or psychologists try and build a profile for the perpetrator based on past cases or known information.
After reading the articles from those 3 website (multiple from the second website) I started looking at profiling from another direction. I mean how does one start to build a profile? They gather information about the perpetrator and start to make assumption, generalizations or put them in categories. But, how do they know what categories to put them in? What assumptions or generalizations would be most accurate? While reading these articles, as I said, my perspective changed.
I found the first link very interesting. I liked their application of information that is gathered while profiling. We already knew that investigations gather information about the perpetrator’s behaviors, motives and background. I did not know that these people crave the media attention and in order to keep that attention their crimes will progress or their signatures will become more apparent (I hadn’t thought of this as a contributing factor). They applied this information to real situation in saying that once this information is gathered they can 1. link these crimes to other crimes and 2. it is easier for people to identify the perpetrator if they have an accurate description. This information seem similar to what we read in the book – the profile is made of the perpetrator after they crime is committed and before they are caught.
I am going to jump the third link listed because it is a transition to my new perspective about profiling. This article addresses the case of the “Mad Bomber”. There were random bombs placed sporadically around the city for 15 years and finally investigators and police requested the help of psychiatrist James Brussel to help build a profile for this perpetrator/criminal. Then the article goes on to discuss how one goes about building a profile. Where the idea started and how they started building and adding information and substance to this new field/form of investigating. The article ends in a broad perspective and addresses how many areas of police investigations would benefit from psychological input and the relationship of psychology and law enforcement.
The middle link lists several articles. It is in this reading that I started looking at profiling in two ways. The first way (address in the book and in the first and last links) looks a crime and then starts to build a profile of the perpetrator with hopes of catching them or catching them sooner. These other articles discuss crimes and then talk about the person that committed them. This is why I see the last link and article about the Mad Bomber to be transition. This article talks about an insanely accurate profile that helped lead to the capture of the perpetrator and it also talks about how profiling came about. After profiling proved to be beneficial then research was done to collected information about serial killers, killers, criminals, etc. The foundations, reference points, empirically supported data gives profiling verification – it validates the predictions, assumptions and generalizations that profilers make.
The article that discusses Jack the Ripper and what seems to be one of the first profiles made. It goes unproven or unsolved, but it sparked this whole new field that helps investigations- very important.
For the murders that took place in and around Austria the killer was able to continue because they had no means of collecting and compiling data that would allow them to compare and make connections between crimes. Only after a retired office made the connection was Jack found – other than him that weren’t people trying to make connections. Instead they were focusing on the differences between the crimes instead of their similarities.
There is a lot of information in these articles (in all of them, but specifically from the second link). To sum up I think that the majority or a reoccurring idea from the articles in the second link was that connections were missed in the beginning or altogether. Connections that information that should be obvious is there is proper and accurate profiling of the case/perpetrator.
These articles are a little discerning. I know these are throughout a long period of time but there seems to be more serial killers than I suspected. And sometimes they are strangers and sometimes they are really scary looking with glass eyes. But, there is a whole field of research that is pretty new yet. I am eager and interested in profiling. Hopefully it will become more accurate (not sure how) and will play a more important role in criminal investigations.