Offender Profiling

1
Offender Profiling

• Gareth Norris
• 1st March, 2005.

2
A Brief History

• Thomas Bond and Jack the Ripper
• Walter Langer and Adolf Hitler
• James Brussel and the Mad Bomber
• Howard Teten and Pat Mullany
• John Douglas and Robert Ressler
• David Canter

3
Whitechapel London 1888

• Dr Thomas Bond Forensic Pathologist
• Believed the offender to be suffering from
  Satyriasis excessive and uncontrollable sexual
  desire in males
• Believed the offender may also be a surgeon or
  medical practitioner due to the skill in which he
  dissected his victims
• The case of the Dusseldorf Vampire, Peter Kurten,
  also included a number of psychological
  considerations by the pathologist Dr Karl Berg in
  1929, believing him to be a narcissistic
  psychopath

4
Office of Strategic Services 1943

• Psychiatrist Walter Langer commissioned by US OSS
  to provide a psychological profile of Adolf
  Hitler
• Provided various detailed descriptions of Hitler
  and how he saw himself, how he was regarded by
  his colleagues and also how the German people
  viewed him
• Believed him to be overwhelmed by his Oedipal
  complex, in dire need to express his manliness to
  his mother, and that at the ultimate climax to
  conflict would commit suicide
• Freud and Bullit Woodrow Wilson 1934 (1964)

5
New York 1956

• Psychiatrist James Brussel asked to profile Mad
  Bomber
• Believed offender would be middle-aged,
  unmarried, well educated and live alone or with a
  mother-like figure
• Also stated he would be wearing a
  double-breasted suit buttoned
• Later profiled Albert DeSalvo The Boston
  Strangler

6
Quantico, Virginia 1972-

• FBI special agents Howard Teten and Pat Mullany
• Collaborated with Brussels in systemizing this
  emerging field
• Began teaching abnormal psychology and applied
  criminology to students at the academy
• Behavioural Science Unit (BSU)

7
Still in Quantico

• In 1979, the BSU began the Criminal Personality
  Research Project (CPRP)
• Eventual data collection took some 4 years
  (1979-1983) and involved by its completion, some
  29 individuals, including a number of
  professional staff from the Boston City Hospital
• Interviews conducted with 36 incarcerated sexual
  killers NOT all serial killers
• Chapter - Crime Scene and Profile Characteristics
  of Organized and Disorganized Murderers

8
Organised and Disorganized

• Refers to the appearance of the crime scene
• Each is classified and then the offenders likely
  characteristics are ascertained
• Incorporates investigator experience and
  intuition
• Also a mixed category

9
Organised and Disorganised Crime Scenes

• Offence planned
• Victim is a stranger
• Personalizes victim
• Controlled conversation
• Overall control
• Submissive victim
• Restraints used
• Aggressive acts
• Body hidden
• Weapon/evidence absent
• Transports body

• Spontaneous offence
• Victim or location known
• Depersonalizes victim
• Random and sloppy
• Sudden violence
• Minimal use of restraints
• Sexual acts after death
• Body left in view
• Weapon/evidence present
• Body left at death scene

10
Organised and Disorganised Offender
Characteristics

• Good intelligence
• Socially competent
• Skilled work
• Sexually competent
• High birth order
• Fathers work stable
• Inconsistent discipline
• Controlled mood
• Alcohol and/or drug use
• Stressor
• Living with partner
• Car in good condition
• Follows crime in media
• May change jobs

• Average Intelligence
• Socially immature
• Poor work history
• Sexually incompetent
• Low birth order
• Fathers work unstable
• Harsh discipline
• Minimal alcohol/drug use
• Minimal stress
• Lives alone
• Lives/works near scene
• Minimal interest in media
• Minimal lifestyle change

11
Surrey, England 1985

• New Scotland Yard consult psychologist David
  Canter about profiling
• 1986 Canter provides profile of John Duffy -
  The Railway Rapist
• Profile is remarkably accurate and Duffy is
  sentenced to life imprisonment apprehended
  partly through Canters advice
• MSc in Investigative Psychology begins at Surrey
  University (moves to Liverpool University in 1994)

12
Narrative Theory Five Factor model

• Narrative theory is based on the way in which we
  live our lives according to scripts which help
  us to make sense of the world
• Our inner-narratives dictate the way in which we
  deal with people and situations, in both criminal
  and non-criminal interactions.
• Considerable overlap between the two
• Five factors of behaviour between offender and
  victim interpersonal coherence, significance of
  time and place, criminal characteristics,
  criminal career, and forensic awareness

13
SSA of crime scene actions -Interpretation

• Core High Frequency
• Behaviours
• Victims face not hidden (88)
• Victim at scene where killed (79)
• Victim found where fell (61)
• Multiple wounds (52)

Instrumental
Covered
Naked
Manual
Bound
Sexual
Transported
Shot
Expressive
Drugged/Poisoned
14
IP, the FBI and statistics

• Both use statistics to generalise from past
  behaviours
• FBI developed organised/disorganised hypothesis
  using analysis of interviews with incarcerated
  serial killers
• FBIs typology (although groundbreaking) is
  essentially flawed, both theoretically and
  methodologically
• IP used more rigorous and sophisticated analysis
  and makes findings available for peer review

15
Fundamental Concepts and Terms

• Profiling thought
• Crime scene characteristics
• Method of approach and attack
• Motive, MO and Signature
• Victimology

16
Profiling Thought

• A great deal of profiling is about the way we
  think
• Most offender behaviour is rational and logical
  (even the seemingly bizarre) and so too should
  our thoughts as profilers be rational and logical
• Mysticism has little place in the profiling
  process
• Understanding ones level of competence not
  walking in the shoes of the murderer
• Most of all, our conclusions should be backed up
  by evidence and sound reasoning

17
Crime Scene Characteristics

• Determining where a crime occurred in relation to
  other crime scenes is vital for reconstruction
  purposes
• If we have a secondary scene, then we know we
  have to find a primary scene where large amounts
  of evidence may be
• An offenders choice of crime scene may tell you a
  lot about the offenders motive, familiarity with
  a location or victim choice

18
Continued

• Point of contact
• Primary crime scene
• Secondary crime scene
• Intermediate scene
• Dump/disposal site

19
Motive, MO and Signature

• Motive and MO have traditionally been used for
  case linkage
• These are the two most problematic ways to link a
  case
• Motive is extremely broad and applies to groups
  of offenders as well as individuals
• MO also refers to the behaviour of groups, but is
  extremely dynamic across offences
• Signature is perhaps the best option for case
  linkage

20
Continued

• Motive
• Refers to the motivation of the offender for
  committing the crime
• There is always a motive for a crime, though it
  may not be readily apparent
• No one acts without motivation (Geberth, 1996)
• MO
• Modus operandi or method of operation
• Refers to those things the offender did that were
  necessary for the successful completion of the
  crime
• May refer behaviours at the crime scene, with the
  victim, or self
• Functional in nature

21
Continued

• Signature
• Reflects the underlying psychological or physical
  needs of the offender
• Therefore, is not a functional aspect of the
  offence
• Refers to those things that the offender did at
  the crime scene, or to the victim, that were not
  necessary for the successful completion of the
  crime

22
Victimology

• A thorough and comprehensive examination of the
  background of the victim
• Includes all aspects of the victims life
• Height, weight, education, sexual history, drug
  use, clothing, time line
• You may discover things about the victim that
  close friends and family did not know
• Connections between the victim and third parties
  may offer insight into victim choice, where the
  victim was encountered, places to search for
  evidence

23
Profiling Inputs FBI

• Crime Scene
• Evidence, body position, weapons
• Victimology
• Background, habits, family, last seen, age,
  occupation
• Forensic Information
• Cause of death, wounds, autopsy, sexual acts
• Preliminary Police Reports
• Background info, police observation, time of
  crime, crime rate of neighbourhood
• Photos
• Aerial, crime scene, victim

24
What does a profile look like?

• Depends on who is constructing it
• Usually contains material relating to the
  background and characteristics of the offender,
  e.g. age, gender, education, intelligence,
  employment, residence etc.
• Sometimes includes interview strategies and
  post-offence behaviour
• May also include intuitive considerations
• No specified or universal format