To the public eye, criminal profiling is the perfect tool in helping law enforcement find a suspect who committed a certain crime; that is, according to crime shows like Criminal Minds, Law and Order, and NCIS. In these shows, the bad guy is always caught and justice is served. All of which happens in a matter of an hour. So, is criminal profiling actually this accurate? Does it have any scientific basis? What about the people who fit the profile, but are innocent, how does it affect them? This research paper will be addressing these questions and examining America’s favorite law enforcement tool: criminal profiling. Criminal profiling is used by law enforcement to narrow down a suspect list by creating a profile about the unknown suspect
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However, it is still a relatively new field of study because it is used by both law enforcement and psychologists. “…Methods of criminal profiling developed by the FBI appear to have followed guideline lacking in proper methodology, and research standards (Wafler. Fact. 2).” It also relies too much on experience instead of scientific research or methods. Despite these aspects of the field, statistics and research have started being used to create scientific methods in the creation of a …show more content…
The question is, are we able to keep police from considering race when profiling a suspect, or even during a simple traffic stop? “Vikas K. Gumbhir speculates this is because the decision-making capacities of the officers is impaired by three factors: (a) racial stereotypes that are held by the officers that influence the way they perceive racial minorities (mixing facts with value implications), (b) institutional features of police departments such as hiring policies, training, deployment, scheduling, and professional culture, and (c) a backdoor justification of (a) and (b) by arrest figures that appear to show that the targeting behavior is effective police work (Boylan. Ethical. 9),” Race is also used in a profile because previous crimes say that a certain percentage of a certain crime is committed by a certain race. When looking at serial killers, statistics show that in 2010 52% of serial killers where white, 40% were Black, and 6% Hispanic. Robbery statics show that 55% are Black, and 43% are White. However, there is always an exception to the percentages, therefore making race almost unneeded for a profile. Most critics, though, forget that a profile is only a guideline and should, therefore, only be taken as
However, it is still a relatively new field of study because it is used by both law enforcement and psychologists. “…Methods of criminal profiling developed by the FBI appear to have followed guideline lacking in proper methodology, and research standards (Wafler. Fact. 2).” It also relies too much on experience instead of scientific research or methods. Despite these aspects of the field, statistics and research have started being used to create scientific methods in the creation of a …show more content…
The question is, are we able to keep police from considering race when profiling a suspect, or even during a simple traffic stop? “Vikas K. Gumbhir speculates this is because the decision-making capacities of the officers is impaired by three factors: (a) racial stereotypes that are held by the officers that influence the way they perceive racial minorities (mixing facts with value implications), (b) institutional features of police departments such as hiring policies, training, deployment, scheduling, and professional culture, and (c) a backdoor justification of (a) and (b) by arrest figures that appear to show that the targeting behavior is effective police work (Boylan. Ethical. 9),” Race is also used in a profile because previous crimes say that a certain percentage of a certain crime is committed by a certain race. When looking at serial killers, statistics show that in 2010 52% of serial killers where white, 40% were Black, and 6% Hispanic. Robbery statics show that 55% are Black, and 43% are White. However, there is always an exception to the percentages, therefore making race almost unneeded for a profile. Most critics, though, forget that a profile is only a guideline and should, therefore, only be taken as