Criminal Profiling Essay

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LITERATURE REVIEW "Criminal profiling is the development of an investigation by means of obtainable information regarding an offence and crime scene to compile a psychosomatic representation of the known architect of the crime." (Douglas and Olshaker, 1995 quoted in Muller, 2000:235). But unfortunately what the media has done is portray the science of profiling into a more precognitive clairvoyant capability which is far from the truth. Criminal profiling comes from the use of the characteristics of an offender’s crime scene and the behavioral patterns they demonstrate. The media has assumed that profiling is a perfect skill but profiling is still miss- understood in the law enforcement arena. "Most criminal profiling uses information …show more content…

Profiling is the process of looking at the violent offenders so that their behavioral patterns can be examined so the investigators can learn as much as possible about these offenders. There are several manifestations that an offender demonstrates during their crimes that can be used during the criminal behavior in the profile. These are Modus Operandi, Signature or Personation, and Staging each of these be examined further later on. Each of these behaviors are made or committed during the process of them committing their crimes. The job of the profiler is to reconstruct these behaviors from the physical evidence so the profiler can look for any patterns in these behaviors. Doing this will illuminate behaviors within a specific crime or even a series of crimes to a specific serial offender. Criminal profiling is mostly used in extremely violent crimes and not used in all cases. Profiling can also lower the number of victims because the profile can result in more specific details and the serial killer can be apprehended quicker. The trouble with profiling is that it can be misleading. The fact that so much is written on this subject that serial offenders can get their hands on it and learn what the experts know. If the profile is misleading the investigators will be looking in the wrong direction and this could lead to more

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