ination of possible connections between unsolved and solved murders of females within the U.K.
The Policing and Reducing Crime Unit (PRC) of the British Home Office assists the NCF in several areas, including research (e.g., theory validation, profiling utility, rape geography, etc.), building violent criminal databases, and determining the optimal manner of delivery for profiling services (Aitken et al., 1995; Copson, 1993; Dale & Davies, 1994a, 1994b; Davies & Dale, 1995b; Farrington & Lambert, 1993). They are currently involved in an assessment of all operational offender profiles within the U.K.
5.2 Organized and Disorganized Crime Scenes
The FBI profiling approach is based upon a systematic process that follows a four-stage sequence: (1) data assimilation; (2) crime classification; (3) crime reconstruction; and (4) profile generation (Jackson & Bekerian, 1997a). The criminal profile generating process involves the use of decision models, based on data inputs, to develop crime assessments and criminal profiles (Ressler et al., 1988). Further investigation may provide feedback to the system. Depending upon offence type, different criminal personality typologies are employed in the profiling process. For murder cases, psychological profilers use the categories of organized and disorganized, as determined from crime scene behaviour and offender lifestyle. While this is an ideal dichotomy, most real killers are mixed to some degree.
Organized offenders typically plan their crimes, likely have access to a vehicle, and travel further from home to offend. They are usually intelligent and sane, but may be psychopathic. Characteristics include superior intelligence, social and sexual competence, skilled occupation, high birth order status, father with stable work history, inconsistent childhood discipline, controlled mood during crime, alcohol use, precipitating situational stress, living with a partner, mobile, car in good condition, investigation followed in the news, and possible change of jobs or move from town after the crime (Ressler et al., 1988). Organized crime scene characteristics include a planned crime, stranger victim, victim personalized, demand for submissive victim, use of restraints, conversation controlled, crime scene controlled, aggression prior to death, weapon and evidence absent, victim’s body transported, and body hidden.
Disorganized offenders typically act spontaneously and do not plan their crimes. They tend to live or work near the crime sites. Many suffer from some form of psychosis such as paranoid schizophrenia. Characteristics include average to below average intelligence, social and sexual immaturity, poor work record, low birth order status, father with unstable work history, harsh childhood discipline, anxious mood during crime, minimal use of
© 2000 by CRC Press LLC
alcohol, living alone, crime scene near residence or work, does not follow the investigation in the news, and minimal change in lifestyle after the crime (Ressler et al., 1988). Disorganized crime scene characteristics include a spontaneous crime, knowledge of victim or location, sudden violence to victim (blitz attack), minimal use of restraints, depersonalization of victim, minimal conversation, random and sloppy crime scene, postmortem sex, weapon and evidence present and body left in view and not removed from crime scene.
There is supporting evidence that crime scenes can be reliably categorized as organized or disorganized, and that this typology is correlated with offender characteristics (Homant & Kennedy, 1998). An FBI study of crime scene classification (n = 220) found an interrater agreement level of 74.1% (Ressler & Burgess, 1985). Kocsis et al. (1998) examined arson cases in New South Wales, Australia, to determine whether the organized/disorganized dichotomy was a subjective categorization or actually intrinsic to the crime itself. The study found support for the latter hypothesis. A cluster analysis of crime scene variables produced two basic groupings that matched a priori organized/disorganized categories and offender characteristics. But the need still exists for further research into this offender profiling dichotomy and the development of objectively quantifiable scales for categorizing crime scenes (Homant & Kennedy, 1998).
The most commonly used profiling methodology appears to be crime scene analysis (the FBI approach), followed by diagnostic evaluation (Wilson, Lincoln, & Kocsis, 1997). Investigative psychology, another profiling method primarily used in England, is based upon a five-factor model constructed from facet theory and smallest space analysis (SSA): (1) attempted intimacy; (2) sexual gratification; (3) aggression; (4) impersonal interaction; and (5) criminality (Canter & Heritage, 1990). The Australian national police Criminal Profiling Research Unit developed a profiling model from the statistical analysis of 86 sexual murders from 1960 to 1998 (Kocsis, 1999). After elimination of actions common to most crimes, four distinct behaviour patterns emerged: (1) the predator pattern, characterized by torture, sadism and a high level of planning; (2) the perversion pattern, typified by organized behaviour and bizarre sexual perversions; (3) the fury pattern, distinguished by hatred, hostility, and excessively brutal attacks; and (4) the rape pattern, in which sexual assault is the primary purpose and the murder is accidental or committed to avoid apprehension (the offender is often vaguely acquainted with the victim). Predator and perversion patterns are methodical (organized), and fury and rape patterns haphazard (disorganized).
© 2000 by CRC Press LLC
5.3 Applications of Profiling
Profiling requirements are information intensive, perhaps because of the method’s probabilistic nature. In turn, a profile can provide a variety of suggestions concerning offender characteristics including likely age, race, sex, socioeconomic status, residence description, method of transportation, education level, marital status, employment background, criminal record particulars, psychiatric history, social and sexual development, military history, physical characteristics, habits, degree of organization, pre-offence behaviour, post-offence behaviour, and the possibility of accomplices (Geberth, 1996; Ressler et al., 1988).
Profiles also attempt to give a general estimate of the criminal’s residence proximity to the crime scenes (e.g., “the offender likely lives or works in the neighbourhood of the murders”). Background information necessary for a profile includes, amongst other details, the addresses of the victim’s residence and employment, where he or she was last seen, the locations of the crime sites, and a map of the victim’s travels prior to death (Geberth, 1996).
In addition to the criminal profiling of unknown suspects and the establishment of investigative priorities, profiling techniques have been used for a variety of other purposes. These include indirect personality assessments (to assist in developing interviewing, undercover, or cross-examination approaches), equivocal death analyses, development of investigative and trial strategies, establishing grounds for search and seizure, threat assessments, and informing linkage analyses (Ault & Hazelwood, 1995; Cavanagh & MacKay, 1991; Jackson et al., 1994).
Offences suitable for profiling involve those incidents where the suspect has demonstrated some form of psychopathology or the offence is of an unusual, bizarre, violent, sexual or repetitive nature (Geberth, 1981). Profiles have been prepared in cases of mutilation, torture, and lust murders; serial killings; homicides involving postmortem cutting, slashing, evisceration, or body exploration; ritualistic and Satanic or cult crimes; rapes and sadistic sexual assaults; random arsons; child molestings; bombings; bank robberies; and false rape allegations (Cavanagh & MacKay, 1991). It has even been suggested that the personality traits of a murderer may be profiled based on the characteristics of the handgun (type, model, image, calibre, and ammunition) used (Bensimon, 1997).
Howard Teten (1989), a former FBI member and one of the fathers of criminal profiling, however, cautions that the technique should only be applied to specific types of crimes, typically those involving overt sexual activity or loss of contact with reality by the offender. Profiling property or drug-related crimes is also problematic; there is usually little contact with the victim or time spent at the scene in property offences, and drug use alters
© 2000 by CRC Press LLC
the basic personality of the offender. Rape crimes where the victim was unconscious or cannot remember the incident, or the offender was under the influence of drugs, did not speak, used minimal force, or did not engage in atypical sexual activity, are difficult to profile (Hazelwood, Ressler, Depue, & Douglas, 1995). Generally, cases lacking offender behaviour or other relevant information will prove difficult to profile. And because of its probabilistic nature, profiling is more powerful in multiple than single crime cases. Kennedy and Homant (1997) suggest that “modern profiling in general is a viable and intriguing investigative tool that can be useful within limits.… [but] refinement efforts should first be directed to improving the study of serial rape and murder before reaching too far out into other crime categories” (pp. 226, 228).
Detective John Baeza (1999) of the New York Police Department outlines criteria for what a police task force should expect from a psychological or geographic profile. Profilers need to operate within their area of expertise, integrate physical with behavioural evidence, and be prepared to visit the crime sites. The report itself should be written, comprehensive, and provide investigative suggestions. Profilers have to be able to explain their logic, and investigators must be willing to ask questions about methods and conclusions. He observes that while profiles are only a tool and their results are not set in stone, they can play a useful role in task force management through suspect and tip prioritization. FBI and Fellowship profilers often follow a case consultation model where investigators present the details of their crimes to a panel of profilers using photographs, maps, charts, and reports. After questions and answers, a brainstorming session leads to a collaborative profile and specific case strategies, all documented by the investigator.
5.4 Critiques
Profiling has generated its share of interest, controversy, and censure (Jeffers, 1991; Jackson et al., 1994; Jenkins, 1994; Levin & Fox, 1985; Masters, 1994; Poythress, Otto, Darkes, & Starr, 1993; Rosenbaum, 1993; Turco, 1990). It has been suggested that profiles provide information that is general and ambiguous at best, and misleading at worst. In particular, profiling has been criticized as wanting programmatic validity and reliability research, and for lacking a proper theoretical basis. Bartol (1996) surveyed 152 full and parttime police psychologists and found that 70% were uncomfortable with the validity and usefulness of profiling; many thought more research was needed. The investigative psychology approach has been questioned in Britain because of a lack of empirical verification and the mysterious methodology underlying smallest space analysis (Copson & Holloway, 1996). Meanwhile,
© 2000 by CRC Press LLC
an analysis of profiling results from a small number of cases in Australia produced mixed results (Wilson & Soothill, 1996).
Perhaps the most serious censure to date of profiling, at least within North America, originated from a U.S. Congressional review (Jeffers, 1991). The U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee (HASC), while reviewing the Navy investigation of the 1989 explosion on the USS Iowa, became concerned over the manner in which a conclusion of “intentional action” had been reached (Poythress et al., 1993). Gunners Mate Clayton Hartwig was singly blamed for the tragic incident that resulted in the deaths of 47 sailors. He was alleged to have set off an explosion of a 16-inch turret gun in order to commit suicide (Nelson, 1990).
The Naval Investigative Service (NIS) had requested that the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime conduct a reconstructive psychological evaluation. This procedure, part of the FBI’s profiling service, is termed equivocal death analysis (EDA), and is conceptually similar to a psychological autopsy (Ebert, 1987; Poythress et al., 1993; see Fowler, 1986, for example). In suspect cases, EDA attempts to determine manner of death
— accidental, suicidal, homicidal, or indeterminate — through the use of retrospective psychological techniques.
The HASC was concerned over the validity and reliability of EDA, and these worries were only exacerbated by the disinterest displayed by NCAVC profilers for issues of validity and data integrity (Poythress et al., 1993). They asked for assistance from the American Psychological Association (APA), whose officials responded by forming a review panel comprising 12 psychologists and 2 psychiatrists. The majority of the APA experts subsequently found the FBI’s analysis invalid, and the panel was unanimous in its criticism of EDA procedures, methodology, and unarticulated limitations (U.S.S. Iowa Tragedy, 1990). The lack of concern expressed by BSU profilers over validity and reliability was found to be unacceptable (Review of Navy investigation, 1990). In short, the FBI did not pass the APA peer review.
Calling the process an investigative failure, the HASC noted that: “The major problem with the Navy investigation is that it fell into the trap of an excess of certitude. Thin gruel became red meat. Valid theories and hypotheses were converted into hard fact” (Poythress et al., 1993, p. 10). The APA expert panel cautioned: “The conclusions and inferences drawn in psychological reconstructions are, at best, informed speculations or theoretical formulations and should be labeled as such ... The kinds of unequivocal, bottom-line statements offered by the FBI in its EDA report, regarding Clayton Hartwig, are not defensible within the technical limitations of our science” (Poythress et al., p. 12). In 1990, Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico was able to replicate the turret gun explosion through accidental means, further undermining the Navy’s investigative conclusions (Jeffers, 1991; Nelson, 1990).
© 2000 by CRC Press LLC