Criminal Profiling Advantages And Disadvantages

In the criminal justice system there seems to have been an increasing demand for professionals in the field of human behaviour who can assist law enforcement with solving cases. Law enforcement agencies often ask of the help of psychologists, criminologists and other experts that have specialized in human behaviour when investigating a criminal case. Offender profiling is grounded in the belief that it is possible to work out the characteristics of an offender by examining the characteristic of their offences. According to Ainsworth (2001, p.7) “profiling generally refers to the process of using all the available information about a crime, a crime scene, and a victim in order to compose a profile of the (as yet) unknown perpetrator.” In this essay we shall initially look at how criminal profiling works and then critically discuss this technique and identify advantages and disadvantages in its use.

First and further most, criminal profiling and its process must be explained. Profiling has been used by many countries such as Sweden, Finland, Germany, Canada and Netherlands (Clark, 2002) as well as the UK, seeing that from 1981 to 1994 29 profilers have provided support 242 times in cases. Although more frequently used now, it can be dated back in social sciences, back to the 1870s with work of Cesare Lambroso (Keppel, 2006) with his theory of anthropological criminology which essentially stated that criminality was genetically inherited, and that someone who was born criminal could be identified by physical appearance defects. One of the first most high-profile cases of profiling was the attempt by Scotland Yard to find the identity of Jack the Ripper. Doctor Thomas Bond which was one of the most renound physicians of Victorian L...

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...incorrect in a least some aspects, police will quickly lose faith in their worth. Additionally, severe criminal profiling can lead to implications towards some groups of the society as they will be labelled by the law enforcements such as the police.

In conclusion, it seems that offender profiling has taken a life of its own, as it is especially popular in the media, through shows that involve police investigations. It has moved considerably since we measured the size of heads. It is a discipline that has yet to be proved and lacks academic ground and scientific support but in some cases has been found beneficial, especially when there is no evidence and only psychological leads to work with. But from the information provided above he have concluded to the fact that we need to approach criminal profiling with caution as it is not always as successful as presumed.