Criminal Profiling

Great Essays
Criminal profiling designates a process by which evidence, in particular that found at the crime scene, is analyzed with a view to determining probable offender characteristics. (Chifflet, 2015, p. 1). In simpler terms, profiling is used to identify an unknown offender’s significant personality and demographic characteristics through the analysis of their crimes. Although this seems like a legitimate way to catch a criminal, the reliability and use of profiling has deteriorated throughout the years. One source to this deterioration is through media glamorization giving profiling techniques a depicting image. “These depictions are seldom precise and often present a favorable, albeit fanciful, expectation for the technique” (Kocsis, 2003, p. …show more content…
In their 2000 study, what they did was they gave each group of participants basic multiple choice questions about cognitive processes, physical characteristics, offense behaviors and social dynamics. They then had to write detailed accounts for each of these, and as Pinizzotto and Finkel found, profilers wrote more detailed and longer accounts. But these accounts didn’t show accuracy. What they found was that profilers were better for physical characteristics and not for any of the other characteristics—profiler’s accuracy was between 43-46%. In their 2004 study, what they did was they repeated the same process, but provided the participants information pertaining to a crime series and not one particular crime. Providing a series of crimes is a more realistic depiction of the circumstances in which profilers are typically employed as consultants. What they found in this study was the profilers exceeded in each category over the other groups with 70% accuracy. What this means in comparison to both studies is that profilers only exceed when prior information is given to them to give them a lead. When no information is there, they are up to par with the other participants in the study, including college students with no profiling …show more content…
Starting in the early 1990s, profilers were undistinguishable from other law enforcement when it came to making profiles, and that continued through the early 2000s. Pinizzotto and Finkel were the first people to try to identify this. Since then the media and television have taken over, portraying a different view of profiling. Shows like Criminal Minds and the Profiler falsely portray criminal profiling that make it seem like an everyday activity. In reality, (Chifflet, 2015) criminal profiling is used in high stakes cases where all other leads have gone cold in the investigation: this happens very

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Racial profiling is defined as the use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed an offense. Racial profiling encourages the perpetuation of racial stereotypes therefore it will lead to an estrangement of the races. Unless you are a minority, you most likely have never experienced racial profiling. Since the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, Americans have fallen into a state of delusional thinking by which they believe his being elected eradicated racism as well as prejudices and unfair treatment of minorities. It is not my purpose to accuse all white people of being racist or bigoted, but it would be foolish to assume that these attitudes do not exist or that they are not more prevalent than many people would like to admit.…

    • 1134 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Issues Relating to Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement Law enforcement officers often use the term profiling, which refers to a practice of describing individual behavior (positive or negative) and/or certain personal characteristics. At some point in time, the term profiling has evolved from its original specific intent and shifted from an individual’s actions to the individual’s race, ethnicity or national origin of an individual. Many individuals have seen law enforcement officers from interstate highways to airports describe an individual criminal behavior based on race. In the United States, racial profiling has been used as a way to stereotype an individual or groups solely on race and/or even on the person’s negative behavior still…

    • 1446 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Modern day America racial profiling has become a major issue. According to Higgins (2008), profiling is a conglomeration of physical, behavioral, and psychological components that increase the probability of apprehending a suspect. During the 1980s, law enforcement began introducing race as a trait for profiling an individual. This was during the rise of drug use in the United States. Racial profiling allowed law enforcement officials to identify drug couriers.…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In modern times, racial profiling is recognized as an important public matter that has drawn and continues to draw the attention of many people, governments, and the world as a whole. Some consider the practice of racial profiling as morally wrong as the division of races and ethnicities seemingly promote racism and supremacy sentiments. Some promoters believe that racial profiling is a healthy contributor to public safety. Others promote its use in all levels of security and law enforcement throughout the entire societal structure. Law enforcement and security agencies are constantly called into question due to their use of racial profiling or suggestive use of it.…

    • 365 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    For many years now, America has witnessed the countless occurrences of racially profiling individuals as well as demonstrating excessive use of force, often called police brutality. Racial profiling is defined as an act of discrimination implemented by a stereotype. It is an action that many police officers practice in order to justify their actions towards a person. Police brutality is the use of extensive force when it does not need to be used in a manner that either threatens or physically harms a civilian. Despite the tragic outcomes of the most notorious protests in America, such as the one held in Ferguson, Missouri and Los Angeles, California it has created an idea that police officers will always be superior to civilians.…

    • 1450 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Suspecting someone of having committed or planning to commit an offense based on their race or ethnicity is a broad definition for racial profiling. Often, people are not even profiled because of their race in general, but because members of their race have an unusual high prevalence of committing crimes in a geographic areas (R, Farrell, 2014). In legal terms, racial profiling is the use of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or national origin by law enforcement agents as a factor in deciding who to investigate or search of a specific criminal behavior (Rushing, 2013). According to American Civil Liberties Union, racial profiling is a longstanding and deeply troubling national problem. State laws vary across the United States and some laws…

    • 293 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    After the Civil Rights Movement, people believe that racial profiling ended. Unfortunately, who knows that racial profiling is still reflected throughout the criminal justice system and despite the victories of the civil rights about 30 years ago. Racial profiling refers to the discriminatory practice of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on individual 's race or ethnicity. Racial profiling still exists today because people tend to judge others based solely on their ethnicity and appearance. Humans have their own beliefs to view others differently.…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Racial Profiling

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages

    This paper investigates racial profiling. Racial profiling is a common term that describes the practice of targeting minorities by law enforcements for stops, searches or possible arrest. Over the past years, blacks, Hispanics, Arabs and Muslims (minorities) has received unfair treatments based solely on their race. Such as the phrases “driving while black, flying while Arab and flying while Muslim.” In an extreme way racial profiling can possible lead to police brutality.…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Racial Profiling

    • 710 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Or what if the person you are interviewing is tall? On a conscious level, I’m sure that all of us don’t think that we treat tall people any differently from short people. But there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that height–particularly in men–does trigger a certain set of very positive, unconscious associations. I polled about half of the companies on the Fortune 500 list–the largest corporations in the United States–asking each company questions about its CEO. The heads of big companies are, as I’m sure comes as no surprise to anyone, overwhelmingly white men, which undoubtedly reflects some kind of implicit bias.…

    • 710 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Profiling is used to narrowing down list of suspect. This method cannot solve the case, but develops potential suspects and further investigative follow-up (Hadley, 2005). The profile seeks for the offender’s behaviors, psychological climate, and physical persona.…

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    So from evidence inferences that may be made about the psychological relationship between crimes and offenders, we can deduce potential suspect, giving cranial investigators leads. As “criminals are distinct in personality or psychological profiles.” (Anastasi, 1976). But the degree of how accurate criminal profiling may be brought into…

    • 1182 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    [Topic Justification] Knowing the human behavior of offenders by using the psychological profiling method is the the best way for criminal investigators to apprehend the culprit(s), specifically serial killers. The answer to…

    • 1236 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Race And Crime Essay

    • 4514 Words
    • 18 Pages

    The relationship between race and crime and its impact on decisions in the criminal justice system is a topic of controversy in both public and academic spheres. The imprisonment of ethnic minorities at a higher rate than their White counterpart occurs in most western nation (La Prairie, 1999; Tonry, 1995, 1997). In Canada, the overly represented groups are Aboriginals (First Nations, Inuit, and Metis) and Black Canadians relative to their incidence in the general population (Roberts & Stenning, 2001; Owusu-Bempah & Wortley, 2013). The over-representation of Indigenous Canadians in the penitentiary has been widely documented both in government reports and academic literature (Badock, 1976; Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba, 1991; Clark…

    • 4514 Words
    • 18 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Jack the Ripper is arguably, the first serial killer to ever be profiled. The Whitechapel murders are infamous in the history of unsolved crimes and whodunit cases. The case of Jack the Ripper was influential in the conception of criminal profiling. Although, it was unsuccessful in the Ripper case, criminal profiling has come a long way since the 1900’s. Originally criminal profiling was considered an art form, however, it is slowly being accepted as a science.…

    • 179 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A more recent approach to profiling will also be investigated to establish whether the problems from previous approaches can be ameliorated: - Investigative (Statistical) Profiling (Canter, 2000) This report will aim to guide practitioners within the criminal justice system (e.g. police) by providing a succinct review of research around the approaches. The approaches should be considered with knowledge of the problems involved and what potential solutions are required to avoid them. The Criminal Investigative Approach: The National Centre for the Analysis of Violent Crime (Formerly known as FBI Behavioural Science Unit) described the Criminal Investigative approach as ‘trait based’ profiling.…

    • 836 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays