Forensic Psychology and Criminal Profiling

In the 1970s, bodies of prostitutes were found in Yorkshire, UK. Because they were left in a wide area the different police authorities did not recognise they had a serial killer. Eventually, the police authorities talked to each other and realised the crimes were similar. The crimes happened in similar ways, on similar victims and were found in similar places. All of these things lead to a picture of the killer. These factors are collected together and a criminal profile is produced.  So where do Forensic Psychology and Criminal Profiling stand in relation to the harder sciences that help the police locate suspects?

What is Forensic Psychology?

The term ‘forensic’ means as applies to a Court of Law, so Forensic Psychology is the use of psychological knowledge, to help a judge and jury during a trial.

Image 1: Definition of Forensic Psychology
Credit: Louw, 2015

These will include determining whether or not an accused person is fit to stand trial via an insanity plea. Or perhaps they will be asked if someone has the understanding to know what they did was wrong. In other cases, they could work out if a defence of intoxication, or PTSD would affect the person so they cannot be held responsible for their actions. As an expert, they can attempt to judge if Eyewitness Testimony is reliable, as in many cases a witness statement will be coloured by personal bias. There are many and varied roles which  Forensic Psychology can play in a Court of law (Louw, 2015). And of course, they do Criminal Profiling.

What is Criminal Profiling?

Criminal profiling is a specialised branch of Forensic Psychology. When asked to produce a Criminal Profile, the psychologist profiler takes into account the patterns of behaviour that show up in the evidence provided by the hard sciences, to give the police an insight into how the offender might think and what they might do next. This information allows the police to work out the strategies needed to help locate a suspect (IFFLab, 2023).

Image 2: Definintion of Criminal Profiling.
Credit: Rubeiro, 2021

Origins of Criminal Profiling

If you have an interest in crime dramas and novels, then you have probably heard of Sherlock Holmes. In The Boscombe Valley Mystery, Holmes deduces the criminal was left-handed from the Forensic evidence showing the angle of the blow. In The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, Holmes states the man who owned the hat was no longer loved by his wife, because the hat had not been brushed recently (Doyle, AC). Both of these are examples of profiling. While they take place in fiction, real life Scotland Yard in London, UK, had produced a criminal profile of the prolific serial killer Jack The Ripper. Taking into account how the killer worked, the profile stated that ‘Jack’ was cool and daring, physically strong and prone to fits of homicidal mania. ‘Jack’ was never caught. However, modern psychological profiling is more helpful. In 1956, the New York Police had been failing to catch someone they called ‘The Mad Bomber’ for 16 years. Finally, they asked a psychologist, to produce a profile from notes left by the Bomber. In 1957, when the police caught George Matesky, the profile of mid-50s, paranoid, born abroad,  and self-educated was very nearly spot on. Later, Matesky was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and unable to stand trial (Gordon, 2017). Here, Forensic Psychology and Criminal Profiling joined together to solve the crime.

So, how does Criminal Profiling work?

The crime scene is the starting point of all forensic work, and this includes forensic psychology. A study of the crime scene is vital to understanding how a criminal is thinking. Has the offender cleaned up? Is there any hint of an attempt to hide the crime? (Rossi, 1982)

In the United States, the FBI has characterised offenders into simplistic ‘organised’ or ‘disorganised’ crimes. If there is evidence of tidying up and attempts to hide the crime, the offender is termed organised. According to this method, the organised criminal likely planned the crime against a stranger, and used their above-average IQ to leave as few clues as possible. On the other hand, a disorganised crime is usually one of passion. They are unpremeditated and committed when the offender was frightened or confused. This reduces the criminal to two types of personality and crime, and may not even be valid outside of American culture (Mrs Harris).

There are different angles to approach the formulation of a Criminal Profile.

Geographical

As the name suggests, this approach looks at the landscape of the crime. When two or more crimes occur with a similar modus operandi, then this method locates them on a map. Using this method, Investigative Psychologists have suggested that serial killers have two modes, that they term ‘marauder’, who works from home, and ‘commuters’ who travel. Marauders are considered easier to find, as their crimes tend to form a circle around their base (Mrs Harris).

Image 3: Map showing the location of Jack the Ripper’s crimes.
Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jack_the_ripper_rossmo_3.png

Although putting Jack the Ripper’s crimes onto a map shows a circle, as seen in image 3, he was never captured. This is classified as the Bottom-Up method as shown in the infographic heading of this article (Mrs Harris).

Clinical

The clinical method, as you would expect, is based on the theory that to commit a crime, you need to have psychological problems. George Matesky was deduced to be paranoid. The suggestion that he was in his fifties was arrived at by knowing that Paranoia is most potent around 35. The bombings started 16 years before the police asked for a profile, so the psychologist predicted his age as over 50 (IFFLab, 2023). Using this Top-Down method of profiling gives the police sharp insights into the mentality of an offender (Mrs Harris).

However, the criminal profile must be used in conjunction with actual detective work on the crime, not instead of the detective work.

Could Criminal Profiling just be Good Guesses?

Criminal profiling seems to work, but how valid are the assumptions made? Perhaps, we only hear about the successes. There are two angles of attack for Criminal Profiling. One method, following on from Sherlock Holmes takes into account all the forensic evidence. The profiler focuses solely on the facts of the case and reasons out from there, based on knowledge, intuition and personal experience. In a paper discussing validity of profiling, Ribeiro and Soeiro term this an idiographic approach. The second method they analysed takes into account that a similar mind set creates similar crimes. This nomothetic approach studies statistics and correlation to predict possible future behavioural patterns. Surprisingly, there has been very little research into the validity of these processes, but on anecdotal evidence, police are satisfied with the results. However, there needs to be a lot more research to answer whether or not these Criminal Profiles are just good guesses (Ribeiro, 2021).

Conclusion

A criminal profile is only as much use as fingerprint analysis in an investigation. With what we know about the possibilities of failure in identifying fingerprints, we would not expect to convict a suspect based on one fingerprint. The police need more than one piece of evidence, but that one piece of evidence may point to other sources. Forensic Psychology and Criminal Profiling appear to have a degree of validity, and using them produces results that help the police solve crimes.

References

Doyle, AC. The Complete Sherlock Holmes.  Di Lernia Publishers E-book.

Gordon, G. (2017) New York’s Forgotten Century of Terror. Spacesmith. Sept 11. https://www.spacesmith.com/ideaspace/new-yorks-forgotten-century-of-terror

IFFLab. (2023) Criminal Profiling—A Psychological Analysis of a Criminal’s Mind. Incognito Forensic Foundation. https://ifflab.org/criminal-profiling-insight-criminals-mind/

Louw, D. (2015) Forensic Psychology. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition). pp 351-356. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B978008097086821074X

Mrs Harris & Miss D’Cruz. Offender Profiling. CGS Psychology Blog. https://mrsharrispsychology.school.blog/offender-profiling/

Ribeiro, R. & Soeiro, C. (2021) Analysing criminal profiling validity: Underlying problems and future directions. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. Vol 74. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160252720301291

Rossi, D. & Vorpagel, RE. (1982) Psychological Profiling and Crime Scene Behavioral Analysis. US Dept. of Justice. https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/psychological-profiling-and-crime-scene-behavioral-analysis#:~:text=The%20development%20of%20the%20psychological,clues%20to%20the%20offender%27s%20behavior