The Act of Profiling By: Aly Haffner

What Is Profiling? Profiling is defined as the use of personal characteristics or behavior patterns to make generalizations about a person. Career? Family Life? Behaviours? Interests? Education? Hobbies?

History Of Profiling The first offender profile was introduced during the 1880’s in the case regarding the serial killer, Jack the Ripper. The profile was assembled by detectives of the Metropolitan Police on the personality of Jack the Ripper, who had murdered a series of prostitutes. Dr. Bond also tried to reconstruct the murder and interpret the behavior pattern of the offender: soon he came up with a profile and signature personality traits of the offender to assist police investigation. The profile said that five murders of seven in the area at the time the report was written had been committed by one person alone who was physically strong, composed, and daring. The unknown offender would be quiet and harmless in appearance, possibly middle-aged, and neatly attired, probably wearing a cloak to hide the bloody effects of his attacks out in the open. He would be a loner, without a real occupation, and mentally unstable.

FBI Profiling Stages 1) Assimilation Phase 2) Classification 3) Behavioural 4) Signature 5) Demographic Characteristics

FBI Stage 1: Assimilation Phase The first stage being the Assimilation Phase, which is where all information available in regard to the crime scene, victim, and witnesses is examined. May include photographs of the crime scene, autopsy reports, victim profiles, police reports, and witness statements.

FBI Stage 2: Classification The second stage is Classification, which involves combining the information collected into a framework which essentially classifies the murderer as "organized" or "disorganized". Organized murderers are thought to have advanced social skills, plan their crimes, display control over the victim using social skills and leave little forensic evidence or clues. Compared to the disorganized offender, which is described as impulsive, with few social skills, such that his or her murders are opportunistic and crime scenes suggest frenzied, haphazard behavior and a lack of planning or attempts to avoid detection.

FBI Stage 3: Behavioural Following the classification stage profilers attempt to recreate the behavioral sequence of the crime, in particular, the offender's method of committing the crime.

FBI Stage 4: Signature Profilers also examine closely the offender's “signature” Identifiable from the crime scene and is more distinctive than the method of committing the crime The signature is what the offender does to satisfy his psychological needs in committing the crime.

FBI Stage 5: Demographic Characteristics By completing all of the first 4 stages, the profiler moves on to generate a profile. This profile may contain detailed information regarding the offender's demographic characteristics, family characteristics, military background, education, personality characteristics, and it may also suggest to the investigator the appropriate interview/interrogation techniques to adopt.

Racial Profiling Controversy "Racial profiling" means to the use race in order to create a criminal profile. When asking for a description of an assailant or thief, police almost always ask about skin color, along with height, weight, clothing, scars and tattoos because these details help them identify and capture them. Problems have arisen, however, when generalizations about race are abused to harass innocent people. In reaction to discriminatory abuse of racial profiling, some states and federal agencies have refused to consider race at all when creating criminal profiles.

Racial Profiling Controversy Example 2 Muslim teens had been encountering racial issues when going out in public. Instead of dwelling on their situation, they decided to make it useful and raise awareness to issues they are faced with in their everyday life. They have created a youtube channel called TrueStoryASA where they upload videos of real experiments that they conduct regarding the racial issues that they encounter. The link below is one of their videos which takes place in an airport as they are going through security https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JdyOp_dDfg

Profiling Flaws Along with the misconceptions of profiling based on race, there are sometimes general flaws when profiling as well. These flaws can have a major impact on the reliability and accuracy of the evidence which could result in harmful consequences. Just like any other scientific method it does have its flaws, which is what is making it difficult for people to believe that it is of any help in solving crimes. Incorrect information from profiling can lead to false positives or false negatives.

Profiling Flaw Example Investigators may find a suspect who appears to fit an incorrect profile and ignore or stop investigating other leads. For example, Richard Jewell was wrongly investigated and attacked in the media following the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta. This not only caused great distress to Jewell, but delayed identifying the true culprit, Eric Robert Rudolph. Centennial Olympic Park Richard Jewell Eric Robert Rudolph

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