Profiling has captured the imaginations of Hollywood filmmakers and their audiences for well over a decade. Viewers are easily captivated by Sherlockian detectives who profile perpetrators with brilliant precision, making for bewitching plotlines and intriguing character developments. Yet experts are far more critical of this lasso-like investigative tool. Research suggests that investigators cannot simply walk into a crime scene, construct a profile based on whatever information is left behind, and make predictive observations that will inevitably lead them to the right suspect, as productions like “Criminal Minds” and “Silence of the Lambs” have led many viewers to believe. However, although profiling’s omnipotent abilities are exaggerated
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John E. Douglas, a retired FBI agent often referred to as “the godfather of profiling,” described BTK as “an equal opportunity killer” who victimized men, women, and children (Douglas and Dodd, 2007). Douglas profiled that BTK was turned on by having a high level of control over his victims, as he tied them up with whatever was available to him. His yearning for fame was reflected in the way he would position his victims’ bodies after the kill — in the fashion of detective magazine covers. Douglas also asserted that BTK’s “ego would eventually lead to his downfall,” encouraging detectives to “stroke his ego in public whenever possible, to give him the respect he craved, in the hopes that he would continue to communicate with them” (Douglas and Dodd, 2007). Yet Douglas’s initial profile analysis in 1979 failed to lead investigators to the killer by the time he retired in 1995, and it wasn’t until BTK resumed communicating with police in 2004 after falling off the grid in the 1990s that Dennis Rader was pinpointed as the man responsible for the horrific crimes. In “The Usefulness of Criminal Profiling,” authors Craig Jackson, David Wilson, and Baljit Kaur Rana state that their main issue with profiling was that Douglas’s claim to “‘delve inside the …show more content…
A 1997 report, “Validity, Utility, and Ethics of Profiling for Serial Violent and Sexual Offenders,” shows that the FBI also made this case nearly two decades ago, reporting success rates “in excess of 80 percent” (Wilson, Lincoln, and Kocsis, 1997). However, the FBI’s claims are inflated. In reality, Pinizzotto’s 1984 study shows that, out of 192 offender profile requests, only 46 percent were found useful to the investigation. Further more, profiling only aided in identifying suspects 17 percent of the time. Rather, what the profiles did was give investigators “a clearer focus…reinforcing [profiling’s] use as a tool rather than a crime-solving technique” (Wilson, Lincoln, and Kocsis, 1997). Profiling’s effectiveness did not fare much better in Gary Copson’s 1995 study into police use of this technique. Out of 184 cases, profiling was deemed helpful only 14 percent of the time and only helped identify suspects in 2.7 percent of cases (“Testing the Assumption of Behavioural Consistency in a New Zealand Sample of Serial Rapists,” Sarah Tapper, 2008).
In “Questioning the Validity of Criminal Profiling: An Evidence-Based Approach,” Pascale Chifflet states that the high accuracy claims by the FBI is “based on little more than unverifiable speculation, as supporting evidence has never been made publicly available” by FBI investigators, who are also generally reluctant to participate in profiling studies
John E. Douglas, a retired FBI agent often referred to as “the godfather of profiling,” described BTK as “an equal opportunity killer” who victimized men, women, and children (Douglas and Dodd, 2007). Douglas profiled that BTK was turned on by having a high level of control over his victims, as he tied them up with whatever was available to him. His yearning for fame was reflected in the way he would position his victims’ bodies after the kill — in the fashion of detective magazine covers. Douglas also asserted that BTK’s “ego would eventually lead to his downfall,” encouraging detectives to “stroke his ego in public whenever possible, to give him the respect he craved, in the hopes that he would continue to communicate with them” (Douglas and Dodd, 2007). Yet Douglas’s initial profile analysis in 1979 failed to lead investigators to the killer by the time he retired in 1995, and it wasn’t until BTK resumed communicating with police in 2004 after falling off the grid in the 1990s that Dennis Rader was pinpointed as the man responsible for the horrific crimes. In “The Usefulness of Criminal Profiling,” authors Craig Jackson, David Wilson, and Baljit Kaur Rana state that their main issue with profiling was that Douglas’s claim to “‘delve inside the …show more content…
A 1997 report, “Validity, Utility, and Ethics of Profiling for Serial Violent and Sexual Offenders,” shows that the FBI also made this case nearly two decades ago, reporting success rates “in excess of 80 percent” (Wilson, Lincoln, and Kocsis, 1997). However, the FBI’s claims are inflated. In reality, Pinizzotto’s 1984 study shows that, out of 192 offender profile requests, only 46 percent were found useful to the investigation. Further more, profiling only aided in identifying suspects 17 percent of the time. Rather, what the profiles did was give investigators “a clearer focus…reinforcing [profiling’s] use as a tool rather than a crime-solving technique” (Wilson, Lincoln, and Kocsis, 1997). Profiling’s effectiveness did not fare much better in Gary Copson’s 1995 study into police use of this technique. Out of 184 cases, profiling was deemed helpful only 14 percent of the time and only helped identify suspects in 2.7 percent of cases (“Testing the Assumption of Behavioural Consistency in a New Zealand Sample of Serial Rapists,” Sarah Tapper, 2008).
In “Questioning the Validity of Criminal Profiling: An Evidence-Based Approach,” Pascale Chifflet states that the high accuracy claims by the FBI is “based on little more than unverifiable speculation, as supporting evidence has never been made publicly available” by FBI investigators, who are also generally reluctant to participate in profiling studies