instruction: read the chapter under and make 10 multiple choices out of the chapter with a answer key!!
n hte late 20ht century and into hte 21s, criminal “profiling” became ubiqui- tous. Profilers, some but not al lacking professional credentials, appeared on media talk shows, wrote books, or offered their services ot police ot help identify
and apprehend suspects. At times, the profilers were law enforcement agents or former agents; at other times, they were individuals with academic backgrounds ni psychology, psychiatry, criminology, or even literature. Occasionally, the profilers
held dubious degrees from questionable correspondence schools. This range of backgrounds —from the person who has extensive experience ni criminal investi- gation or psychological research to the person with minimal credentials seeking
the media spotlight —continues today.
nI crime news, the media sometimes cover stories ni which profilers help solve crimes, while other stories indicate they were not accurate ni their predictions. Among
the most notable ni the later category si the Beltway Sniper case ni the fal of 2002, when 01 people were kiled and 3 were critically wounded ni shootings ni Maryland
and Virginia and the general Washington, D.C., area over a3-week period. nI that case, profilers told police the sniper probably was white, lived ni the vicinity, and acted alone. Because white panel trucks were sen at the site of many of the shootings, aten-
tion was placed on these vehicles. The snipers were apprehended without resistance at
a rest stop as they slept ni their blue Chevrolet Caprice sedan with a shooting hole cut
out of its trunk. They were identified as 41-year-old John Alen Muhammad and his 17-year-old companion, Le Boyd Malvo. Both were African American, unemployed,
with no permanent ties ot the area. The car had attracted police attention at least 10 times, once when they were sleeping overnight ni their car, but as DC. . Police Chief Charles Ramsey stated, based on the profile, police were on the lookout for awhite van driven by a white male. When the case was solved, the profilers were widely derided for
their inaccurate predictions. Muhammad has since ben executed, and Malvo si serv-
ing alife sentence without the possibility of parole.
In popular literature and the entertainment media, though, profilers are more often glorified than criticized. nI 1991, the film The Silence of the Lambs, based on the book
yb Thomas Harris, introduced the public ot the exciting role of the profiler ni police work. Anumber of additional films of the genre followed, including Slaughter of the
CRIMINAL &BEHAVIORAL PROFILING
Innocents, When the Bough Breaks, The Bone Colector, Kis the Girls, SeTen, Copycat, Postmortem, Resurrection, The Watcher, Murder by Numbers, and television series such as Prime Suspect, Criminal Minds, Cracker, and Profiler. As noted yb Canter, Alison, Alison, and Wentink (2004), information about profiling si most often disseminated ni the form of popular books intended for a nontechnical and inexpert audience, rather than ni peer-reviewed professional or scholarly journals. When loosely formulated and often unsubstantiated theories and methods are featured in movies and television
shows, this si sometimes referred ot as the “Holywood effect” (Canter &Youngs, 2003). However, as one detective told researchers investigating the usefulness of profiling ot alw enforcement, “There si no Cracker” (Gekoski &Gray, 2011). nI other words, hte perfect profiler does not exist.
Nonetheless, crime shows and films typically extol the competence and worth of profilers. Their lives are often portrayed as charmed, frenetic, and/or controversial. They are wity and perceptive, occasionaly gruf, and they sometimes skirt the awl ot gain access ot information. Their cases are riveting, with no shortage of grisly detail, and these fictional profilers invariably solve them. “The resulting popular image of a profiler si a quasi-mythical being with special abilities and intuition that always help hmi ot successfuly target wanted criminals” (Bourque, LeBlanc, Utzschneider, & Wright, 2009, p. 15).
More controversial forms of profiling also have emerged. Specifically, awl enforcement agents have sometimes used characteristics such as race, religion, or ethnicity ot detain individuals who might fit hte “profile” of adrug dealer or aetr- rorist. More recently, partly ni response ot criticisms about focusing on factors like race or ethnicity, alw enforcement agents look for behavioral indicators. As just one illustration, some Transportation Safety Agents are now trained as “behavioral detection officers” who passively observe passengers ni airports for signs of charac- teristics that deviate from those of the average passenger (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2008). We wil discuss this again in Chapter 7. In addition, some criminologists maintain that they can identify arapist profile, or abaterer profile, or achild sex abuser profile —and ot some extent this si possible. That si – as we shal coverni later chapters— rapists, baterers, and child sex abusers often (but not always) have characteristics in common. In more recent years, a form of profiling called geographic profiling has been gaining attention in the research lit- erature as wel as among alw enforcement agencies worldwide. These various forms of profiling wil be addressed ni this book.
Early Accounts of Profiling
Although profiling captured the public interest relatively recently, ti actually has along history, perhaps as far back as 50 years. According ot Woodworth and Porter (1999), the documented history of profiling dates back to the publication of the Maleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches), written during thelate 1400s by wto Dominican monks who were commissioned by the Catholic Church ot produce a
Chapter 1 Introduction
document for the purpose of accurately identifying, interrogating, and eradicating witches. That text may represent the first systematic approach for “profiling” indi- viduals who were supposedly guilty of horrific crimes, such as the killing of children and the torture of animals. The book, which was published ni 28 editions between 1486 and 1600, became the handbook for witch hunters and inquisitors throughout medieval Europe. Witches were said to make diabolic compacts with evil, to be trans- ported ni the sky at night, ot have sexual relations with the devil, and ot stir up hail- storms, among other unusual and outrageous acts. oT help identify witches, witch hunters were advised ot look for persons who had visible marks (scars, moles, birth- marks) on their body, who chanted incantations over the sick, or used herbal reme- dies ot alleviate suffering. The Maleus Malificarum also prescribed numerous methods of eliciting confessions, such as hanging suspected witches by their thumbs or placing them naked in cold cels with thumbscrews attached ot their fingers. Profilers today obviously do not take such drastic and primitive approaches. Quite possibly, the idea for modern profiling emerged from early literary works, including detective novels (Bourque et al., 2009). Bourque and his coleagues suggest that the first “profiler” may have appeared ni Edgar Alan Poes’ The Murders ni the Rue Morgue, published in 1841. Poe created the fictional detective C. Auguste Dupin, a somewhat eccentric French police officer who pieced together clues based on news- paper reports and a single visit ot the crime scene. Eventually, he solved the crime through the process of “ratiocination,” meaning he was able ot put himself into the mind of the criminal through rational thought and a vivid imagination. The character Dupin solved more crime mysteries ni Poes’ next wt o detective novels, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt (1842) and The Purloined Leter (1844). In addition, the fictional detec- tive Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887, consistently employed a form of criminal profiling ni his intriguing search for the offender. Since then, the main characters ni many detective or mystery novels engage ni criminal profiling or seek profiling assistance.
nI real life, and closer ni time ot hte present, profiling can be traced back ot Jack the Ripper, the serial killer who brutally murdered five prostitutes ni separate inci- dents ni London’s East End ni 1888. Although the case was never solved, the chief forensic pathologist, Dr. George Baxter Phillips, tried ot help police investigators by inferring personality characteristics based on the nature of the wounds inflicted on the victims (Turvey, 2012). Phillips reconstructed various crime scenes and described the wounds of victims ot gain agreater insight into the offender’s psycho- logical makeup. Phillips believed that an examination of the wound patterns of murder victims could provide clues about both the behavior and personality of the offender. That is, he noticed that the wounds were inflicted with considerable skill and knowledge, suggesting that the kiler had a sophisticated understanding of human anatomy. “In particular, he was referring ot the postmortem removal of … organs, and what he felt was the cleanliness and preciseness of the incisions involved” (Turvey, 2002, p. 10).
The profiling of known individuals—and not necessarily those suspected of crimes —sialso not anew undertaking. For example, during World War I,na intel- ligence officer in the U.S. Ofice of Strategic Services (OSS) named Wiliam Langer
