Module 1 Assignment 2
Module 1 Overview
In Module 1, you will examine the roots of criminal profiling, address the principles of investigative psychology, and, as a more specific example, discuss in detail a particular classification of presidential stalkers. You will also examine the views of psychologists and psychiatrists regarding criminal profiling.
Over the hundreds of years of crime analysis, investigators have relied on various techniques. Some of them have been quite bizarre, for example, a birthmark indicating that the person in question is a witch. Some of them, such as fingerprint analysis, became the basis of good detective work. In this module, you will look at the different factors that must be considered during an investigation. You will consider the historical relationship between investigations and psychology. You will also discuss the increased sophistication of the investigative process over the last two centuries and perceptions of psychologists and psychiatrists about offender profiling.
In this module, you will be introduced to investigative psychology and the application of psychological principles to the process of police investigations. You will also explore the different historical and fictional characters who have engaged in solving crimes. Detectives have always looked at evidence as something that would help them get a conviction in a court of law. Psychologists, on the other hand, gather data to support or refute their hypotheses. To a police officer, information that is in disagreement with previous evidence or information that is not used is put aside. To a psychologist, any data may contribute to the existing knowledge about something. Thus, it is analyzed repeatedly from different points of view. Detectives closely guard any information they obtain, and if they solve their cases, they may receive promotions and advance their careers. Psychologists, on the other hand, publish what they discover, hoping that others might be able to replicate their experiments and obtain similar results.
For the first assignment of this module, you will introduce yourself to the class. For the second assignment, you will research investigative psychology and explore the reasons for the success and failure of specific profiling methods. In the third assignment, you will examine the behaviors of presidential stalkers from a psychological perspective.
Compare the difference between how law enforcement personnel and forensic mental health professionals would conduct assessment and criminal investigative procedures.
Identify specific personality characteristics that have been found to be linked with specific criminal behavior patterns, while discerning less salient personality characteristics that do not reliably inform psychological profiling.
Strange Calls
Andrea is a young cheerleader for the Centervale Kings professional football team. She had been getting calls from a stranger periodically.
One afternoon, while Andrea is not in her apartment, someone breaks in through the bedroom window screen and steals all her brassieres, panties, bikinis, cheerleader uniforms and pictures.
The Investigation
Andrea’s cousin, Manny Cruz, a detective at the Centervale Police Department, traces the stranger’s next call and finds that it has come from the Motorola office on Main Street.
The Motorola manager discloses that his secretary has been finding letters in her locker written by one of their ex-employees. These letters are obscene and almost frightening. Perhaps the calls to Andrea have a connection with the ex-employee.
Role of the FBI
The letters and any other documents (such as job applications) from office employees are sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for writing analysis. The FBI is asked to review their database for any local registered sex offenders who have a fetish for female undergarments.
It is possible that the caller is not the same person who burglarized Andrea’s apartment.
Role of the Profiler
The profiler is involved in the writing analysis of the letters, phone call analysis (if the calls have been recorded), and review the data received from the FBI.
The key question is whether the caller, the letter writer and the burglar are the same individual.
Role of the Forensic Psychologist
If a suspect is identified and arrested, he or she will be charged with a crime. The forensic psychologist may be hired by either the defense attorney or the prosecutor to evaluate a number of issues:
Competency to stand trial (if the defendant appears to be mentally ill)
Mental health (the defense attorney may want to know if psychological issues played a prominent role during the offense)
Risk of violence or recidivism (to assist the judge in sentencing)
The defendant may also be evaluated at the end of his or her sentence for dangerousness to the community in order to establish appropriate supervision conditions.
Expert’s Response:
Q1: How similar or different should the explanations given by both forensic psychologist be?
As the two experts are hired by opposing parties, they may have been asked to focus on different issues. The expert hired by the defense attorney may inform the defendant that the information from the evaluation may or may not be revealed in court. Even if the defendant confesses to the evaluator, this information may not be given to anyone, save the defense attorney who hired him. However, the results of the evaluation requested by the prosecutor will be revealed in court as this evaluation is court-ordered and must be accessible to all parties.
Their explanation to the defendant must be honest but may be different to a degree, depending on the nature of the examination.
Q2: Are the two experts allowed to communicate with each other while they are conducting the evaluations?
The two experts should not communicate in any way other than to ensure they do not administer identical tests (to avoid a learning effect). Since it is highly likely that they may testify at the trial, they should only communicate with the attorneys who hired them.
Models of Criminal Profiling
A central question in investigative psychology is to identify certain behaviors that are common to an offense. These specific behaviors inform us about the most important psychological processes of any given crime (Canter & Youngs, 2009).
Offenders may have many similarities in the ways they engage in criminal behavior or commit criminal acts. However, each individual may have a unique aspect or a "criminal style," which will distinguish him or her from other criminals. Investigative psychology relies on methods that have been developed by cognitive and social psychologists, epidemiologists, and many others in order to separate criminals from their crimes.
To demonstrate a specific criminal or psychological classification system, you will examine a framework for identification of different psychological characteristics of individuals who have been involved in presidential stalking and assassinations. The White House and different state and federal public officials receive thousands of pieces of mail every year. Secret Service agents examine and follow up on any unusual correspondence (direct and implied threats) addressed to the president. How does one separate the real threats from attention seekers and nuisance correspondents? The present classification framework is a research-based theoretical model. Any individual who comes to the attention of the Secret Service may be compared against this model. In such a manner, the model may be modified and improved with the passage of time and addition of data.
There are two main approaches to criminal profiling. The first approach is generally referred to as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or Crime Scene Analysis (CSA) approach. This most famous profiling method involves little or no psychological theory. It is based on the work of several FBI agents, most notably John Douglas and Robert Ressler, who were members of the Behavioral Science Unit (BSU), which was developed in the mid-1970s to investigate serial rape and homicide cases. The method was developed after agents from the BSU interviewed dozens of serial rapists and murderers over several years.
From the information derived from these interviews, the BSU developed the organized/disorganized dichotomy to describe these serial perpetrators. Organized crimes are most often premeditated and carefully planned; so little evidence is left at the crime scene. Organized criminals have antisocial personality characteristics, appear to be able to differentiate right from wrong, and show little or no remorse. Disorganized crimes are typically not planned, and disorganized criminals tend to leave more evidence at the scene of the crime. Disorganized criminals are more likely to be younger, are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and suffer from more serious mental illnesses that may render them legally insane. The FBI method is a top-down approach that typically is described as involving six steps:
Profiling of inputs
Decision process models
Crime assessment
The criminal profile
The investigation
The apprehension
The other main approach to criminal profiling is offender profiling, developed by British applied psychologist David Canter, who is generally credited as the founder of the field of investigative psychology in the early 1990s. This bottom-up method is based more on psychological theories and methodologies than it is on the criminal investigative experience of FBI agents. This method attempts to show how and why variations in criminal behavior occur and searches for similarities and differences among the actions of offenders. Through the use of statistical techniques of psychology to group together types of offender behaviors, this method claims to develop scientifically defensible descriptions and classifications of offenders.
Media Portrayals; Forensic Psychologists
The shows Criminal Minds and Lie to Me detail the investigative and analytical processes on the part of the experts, including forensic psychologists, specializing in crime analysis and nonverbal communications.
You can access these shows through cable television and the Hulu Web site.
Baum, S., & Roth, T. (Producers). (2009). Lie to Me [Television series]. United States: 20th Century Fox Television.
Gordon, M., Allen, E. B., & Spera, D. (Producers). (2005). Criminal Minds [Television series]. New York, NY: ABC Studios.
Hulu. (n.d.). http://www.hulu.com/
History of Offender Profiling
Winerman (2004) provides a glimpse of the history of criminal profiling.
For sixteen years, "mad bomber" George Metesky eluded the New York City police. Metesky planted more than thirty small bombs around the city between 1940 and 1956, hitting movie theaters, phone booths, and other public areas.
In 1956, the frustrated investigators asked psychiatrist James Brussel, New York's assistant commissioner of mental hygiene, to study crime scene photos and notes from the bomber. Brussel came up with a detailed description of the suspect: He would be unmarried, foreign, self-educated, in his fifties, living in Connecticut, paranoid, and with a vendetta against Con Edison—the first bomb had targeted the power company's 67th Street headquarters.
While some of Brussel's predictions were simply common sense, others were based on psychological ideas. For instance, he said that because paranoia tends to peak around thirty-five years of age, the bomber, who was sixteen years old at the time of his first bombing, would now be in his fifties. The profile proved dead-on: it led the police right to Metesky, who was arrested in January 1957 and confessed immediately.
In the following decades, the police in New York and elsewhere continued to consult psychologists and psychiatrists to develop profiles of particularly difficult-to-catch offenders. At the same time, though, much of the criminal profiling field developed within the law enforcement community—particularly the FBI.
Nowadays, profiling rests, sometimes uneasily, somewhere between law enforcement and psychology. As a science, it is still a relatively new field, with few set boundaries or definitions. Its practitioners don't always agree on the methodology or even the terminology. The term "profiling" has caught on among the general public, largely due to movies like The Silence of the Lambs and television shows like Profiler. But the FBI calls its form of profiling "criminal investigative analysis"; one prominent forensic psychologist calls his work "investigative psychology," and another calls his work "crime action profiling."
Despite the different names, all of these tactics share a common goal, that is, to help investigators examine evidence from crime scenes and victim and witness reports to develop offender descriptions. The descriptions can include psychological variables, such as personality traits, psychopathologies, and behavior patterns, as well as demographic variables, such as age, race, and geographic location. Investigators might use profiling to narrow down a field of suspects or figure out how to interrogate a suspect already in custody.
"In some ways, [profiling] is really still as much an art as a science," says psychologist Harvey Schlossberg, Ph.D., former director of psychological services for the New York Police Department. But in recent years, many psychologists—
together with criminologists and law enforcement officials—have begun using psychology's statistical and research methods to bring more science into the art.
To learn more about the history of criminal profiling, refer to the Webliography.
Reference:
Winerman, L. (2004). Criminal profiling: The reality behind the myth. APA
Monitor, 35(7), 66.
Conclusion
In Module 1, you have learned about the definitions that underlie criminal profiling, the history of criminal profiling, and the major models underlying these techniques. You have learned where the realities lie and where dramatic interpretation has come in to "Hollywoodize" criminal investigative techniques through television shows like Criminal Minds and movies like The Silence of the Lambs. In the upcoming modules, you will build upon this foundation as you learn more about criminal profiling.
Click here to view a useful site to deepen your knowledge on the American Board of Forensic Psychology or go to this website http://abfp.com/
Overview of RAs
Overview of RAs
You will complete two major RAs in this course. These are due in Modules 3 and 5.
RA 1: Case Analysis
In M3 Assignment 2 RA 1, you will analyze a case and prepare a post-arrest mental health assessment and investigative assessment. On the basis of the hypothetical results of appropriate psychometric tests, you will develop a detailed post-conviction treatment plan for the offender.
RA 2: Personality Characteristics and Criminal Behavior
In M5 Assignment 2 RA 2, you will develop detailed forensic profiles for a list of five offenses: sex offense, murder, acquisitive crime, organized crime, and terrorism. For your forensic profiles, you will recommend tests and measures that can be used to gather information. Finally, you will discuss the different ethical considerations one must follow as an investigator and as a psychologist.
