Reproductive Capacity of Profiling Approaches and Time Spirit Minimizing - Essay Example

Are Experts any better than Trained Novices at Profiling? Student’s Name Institution Affiliation Are Experts any better than Trained Novices at Profiling? Criminal profiling can also be termed as offender profiling, criminal personality profiling, criminology profiling, behavioral profiling, or criminal investigative analysis. Criminal profiling can be defined as an educated and analytical approach to try to get the necessary information on the individual who committed a particular crime based on the different characteristics that distinguishes people from each other and from the general population. Criminal profiling involves identifying the perpetrator of a given crime by analyzing the nature of the offense and the manner in which it was committed among others. It also involves identifying the distinguishing personality traits of the individual, their behavioral tendencies, the geographical location of the crime, and the biographical descriptors of an offender based on the crime scene characteristics (Bennell, Taylor & Snook, 2007). The person who investigates is a criminal profiler, and his or her main aim is to use the information from the crime scene to catch the perpetrators of the crime committed. The process of profiling is different for different persons depending on their training; however, the aim is similar, which is to try to obtain the necessary and enough information on the behavioral unique personality, and characteristics of the perpetrator to be able to get them. Criminal profiling is important in criminal investigations because it helps to give the necessary information that the judicial system will use to make credible assessments and rulings. The kind of information it provides include the environmental and psychological conclusions of the offenders, the psychology evaluations of the possessions found with suspects as well as the deliberations with the police on the various different steps that should be followed when interrogating the suspected criminals to obtain the correct information. The profile on its own however cannot solve a crime, and furthermore, not all crimes can be profiled. In most cases, profiling is appropriate in cases where the criminal perpetrator shows symptoms of psychopathology, or the crime scene has signs of violence and struggle. However, because the profiling on its own will not be used to solve a crime, it therefore works to aid the police in investigations, guide the police in the correct path, and minimize the possibility of the number of suspects suggested (Bennell et al., 2010). Criminal profiling relies on different things including perspectives in which the task of predicting personality characteristics from crime scene are collected and analyzed. This includes what triggered the action, is the person likely to commit the crime again, what was the emotional status of the criminal among others. These conclusions can be deduced based on behavioral similarity across offences, stable relationships between sequences of offence behaviors and common characteristics among others. A forensic physiology expert is a person who is well-versed with criminal law and the related jurisdictions and can relate well with the legal professionals to be relied upon. These people should be able to testify in court, by taking their psychological findings and translating them into the legal language of the courtroom, which can be understood by the legal personnel staff. Forensic physiologists should can understand the philosophy, rules, and standards of their country (Taylor, Bennell & Snook, 2008). Trained novices are the experts in the profiling department involved in the process of profiling. The trained novices have special qualifications in different fields’ according to their different areas of specialization. This usually ranges from criminal profilers who profile criminals’ personal behavioral characteristics, geographical profilers who deal with profiling the likely residence of the offender from the location of the crime, and personality psychologists who usually try to deduce the state of mind of the offender and the likelihood that they will omit the crime again. The stages involved in offender profiling differ from the different profiling methods that are in existence. In FBI offender profiling, the first stage is usually the data assimilation stage. This is whereby data is collected from the various sources that are involved including police reports, pathologist reports, and crime scene photographs. The second stage usually involves crime classification. This is the process where the data assimilation stage one is critically analyzed by different experts and the necessary conclusions made. This is the most important stage in the criminal profiling and requires the best analysis. The third stage is the crime reconstruction stage. Here a hypothesis is generated that attempts to show the victim’s behavior, the sequence of the crimes as seen from the data collected, and the final mode of operation of the criminal. Finally, the third stage is the profile generation stage. Here a hypothesis is presented to adopt the demographic characteristics that are deduced from the data collected, the physical characteristics, behavioral habits, and personality dynamics are also generated. This will prove to be a great help to the persons that attempt to solve the crimes that have been committed (Bennell, Taylor & Snook, 2007). Criminal profilers have the ability to give wrong information and therefore mislead criminal investigators from the true culprits. This is because, criminal profiling is an analytical process that shows the relationship between the information that the criminal profiler receives and how the mind of the profiler analyses this particular information. In case they analyze the information wrongly, then the profile will be misleading. This therefore gives individuals an option of relying on information from expert providers. The experts usually use post hoc analysis of ambiguous predictions in creating a final impression. This is therefore more reliable than criminal profiling since it does not depend on the analytical skills of the personal profiler nor does it depend on scientific procedures (Bennell et al., 2007). The techniques and procedures involved in criminal profiling are three as listed and discussed below. These are the diagnostic evaluation, the crime scene analysis, and the investigative psychology. The diagnostic evaluation is mainly a clinical approach and is not majorly applied in criminal profiling. The crime scene investigation on the other hand seeks to identify the various kinds of offenders by what they do at the crime scene and the way they leave it looking like. In most cases, the offenders are grouped into two individuals, the disorganized, and the organized offenders (Bennell et al., 2007). The disorganized offenders are those with little knowledge of the crime or are in a disturbed state of mind. The organized offenders on the other hand are relatively straightforward and reasonably intelligent. The investigative psychology on the other hand puts into practice the use of theories that are relevant and try to explain the actions of the offender. This procedure collects the theories together and tries to form a possible conclusion from their methodology to solve crimes (Alison et al., 2013). Statistics show that criminal profiling proved very handy in the past in coming up with conclusions in the criminal, his or her lifestyle and the reasons why they committed the particular crime as well as other crimes that they could had committed. Criminal profiling has enabled solving of major cases since its conception and is applied by many large organizations daily in solving difficult crimes. The FBI uses criminal profiling in solving most of its challenging crimes, and the CSIA applies the technique of criminal profiling in solving most of their crimes. It has also been used by individuals to solve disturbing murder cases that had previously been troublesome for the entire country (Van Den Heuval, Alison & Power, 2012). One of the notable profilers from the statistics is a certain medical doctor by the name Thomas Bond. He tried to profile the personality of a certain criminal who had been committing disturbing murders who later came to be known as Jack the Ripper. Bond, who had assisted in the autopsy of a murder victim called Mary Kelly, came up with the profile of the murderer, as someone who was single handed in committing the crimes, the person would be physically strong, composed, and would be quite harmless and quiet. This information was later helpful to the police in determining the person that had committed the crimes (Van Den Heuval, Alison & Power, 2012). Other examples in history include the serial bomber who had terrorized the city of New York through planting of bombs in public places. The police, due to frustrations, ordered for the profiling of the criminal, which was done Dr. Brussel, an assistant commissioner who found that the criminal that was terrorizing others was George Metesky. This helped the police in tracking him down and later, apprehended him. Over the years, criminal profiling has been a major help in determining the criminals involved in committing certain crimes that were troublesome for the police officers and the other investigation personnel involved. However, there are also cases whereby criminal profiling was not efficient in determining the personality of the criminal in question, and this has been attributed to certain problems that the process of criminal profiling faces. An example of an incorrect profiling is the case of a certain Richard Jewell. He was wrongly investigated and attacked following the bombing of the centennial Olympic park in Atlanta. This led to great distress and trauma for him whereas the real culprit was still roaming around scot-free. The history of profiling is littered with mistrust and contradictions from some of the key players involved. This can be seen from the various people that have specialized in criminal profiling and even gone ahead and written articles on the same. These authors are seen to contradict themselves on the fundamentals that are based on criminal profiling and the reliance that can be placed upon it. However, even with this kind of history, criminal profiling has the kind of future whereby it will be really relied on by various people including the police departments and the legal areas in coming up with the necessary conclusions on the kind or the criminals being dealt with. There is hope that a science will be created out of criminal profiling in the future, but this requires various steps to be observed (Alison et al., 2012). The first step involves establishing a major cooperation between the organizations that have shown an interest in using criminal profiling and the trained novices so that they can agree the best way forward. The second step involves providing correct information to the public so that they can deduce the importance of criminal profiling and its benefits. This will ensure that criminal profiling becomes the next big thing (Benell et al., 2010). In conclusion, criminal profiling, regardless of its weaknesses and strongholds, is still a field that needs to be proved effective in criminal finding. The accuracy of criminal profiling has been found to have many implications because in case where the offenders’ profile is slightly wrong or incomplete, it will result in serious consequences. This is because the police and other legal personnel will be misled thus giving the offender a chance of escaping from detection. This in turn will cause innocent lives to be in continuing danger and their safety will be at risk. Furthermore, a wrong profile will lead to an innocent person being caught and tried for something that they obviously did not do. This puts innocent citizens through unnecessary torture. However, these drawbacks should not be a reason for the police and the legal individuals to lose faith in the ability of criminal profiling to be used to catch criminals. Something that is not related to the truth should not be blindly accepted and relied on. Since expert opinion has not shown the same drawbacks as the trained novices, it is therefore preferable to conclude that it is safer to rely on experts’ opinion as compared to fully trusting the trained novices at criminal profiling. References Alison, L., Almond, L., Christiansen, P., Waring, S., Power, N., & Villejoubert, G. (2012). When do We Believe Experts? The Power of the Unorthodox View. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 30(6), 729-48. Alison, L., Doran, B., Long, M., Power, N., & Long, A. (2013). Experience Eductive and Reproductive Ability and Time Perception as Protective Factors in Minimizing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied Bennell, C., Bloomfield, S., Snook, B., Taylor, P. J., & Barnes, C. (2010). Linkage analysis in cases of serial burglary: Comparing the performance of university students, police professionals, and a logistic regression model. Psychology, Crime, and Law, 16 (6), 507-524. Bennell, C, Emeno, K., Snook, B., Taylor, P. J., & Goodwill, A. M. (2010). The precision, accuracy, and efficiency of geographic profiling predictions: A simple heuristic versus mathematical algorithms. Crime mapping: A journal of research and practice, 1(2), 65-84 Bennell, C., Taylor , P. J., & Snook, B. (2007). Clinical versus actuarial geographic profiling approaches: A review of the research. Police Practice and Research, 8(4), 335-345. Bennell, C., Snook, B., Taylor, P. J., Corey, S., & Keyton, J. (2007). It's no riddle, choose the middle: The effect of number of crimes and topographical detail on police officer predictions of serial burglars' home locations. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 34(1), 119-132. Taylor, P. J., Bennell, C., & Snook, B. (2008). The bounds of cognitive heuristic performance on the geographic profiling task. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 22, 410 -430. Van Den Heuvel, C., Alison, L., & Power, N. (2012). Coping with Uncertainty: Police Strategies for Resilient Decision Making and Action Implementation. Cognitive Technology and Work Read More

A forensic physiology expert is a person who is well-versed with criminal law and the related jurisdictions and can relate well with the legal professionals to be relied upon. These people should be able to testify in court, by taking their psychological findings and translating them into the legal language of the courtroom, which can be understood by the legal personnel staff. Forensic physiologists should can understand the philosophy, rules, and standards of their country (Taylor, Bennell & Snook, 2008).

Trained novices are the experts in the profiling department involved in the process of profiling. The trained novices have special qualifications in different fields’ according to their different areas of specialization. This usually ranges from criminal profilers who profile criminals’ personal behavioral characteristics, geographical profilers who deal with profiling the likely residence of the offender from the location of the crime, and personality psychologists who usually try to deduce the state of mind of the offender and the likelihood that they will omit the crime again.

The stages involved in offender profiling differ from the different profiling methods that are in existence. In FBI offender profiling, the first stage is usually the data assimilation stage. This is whereby data is collected from the various sources that are involved including police reports, pathologist reports, and crime scene photographs. The second stage usually involves crime classification. This is the process where the data assimilation stage one is critically analyzed by different experts and the necessary conclusions made.

This is the most important stage in the criminal profiling and requires the best analysis. The third stage is the crime reconstruction stage. Here a hypothesis is generated that attempts to show the victim’s behavior, the sequence of the crimes as seen from the data collected, and the final mode of operation of the criminal. Finally, the third stage is the profile generation stage. Here a hypothesis is presented to adopt the demographic characteristics that are deduced from the data collected, the physical characteristics, behavioral habits, and personality dynamics are also generated.

This will prove to be a great help to the persons that attempt to solve the crimes that have been committed (Bennell, Taylor & Snook, 2007). Criminal profilers have the ability to give wrong information and therefore mislead criminal investigators from the true culprits. This is because, criminal profiling is an analytical process that shows the relationship between the information that the criminal profiler receives and how the mind of the profiler analyses this particular information. In case they analyze the information wrongly, then the profile will be misleading.

This therefore gives individuals an option of relying on information from expert providers. The experts usually use post hoc analysis of ambiguous predictions in creating a final impression. This is therefore more reliable than criminal profiling since it does not depend on the analytical skills of the personal profiler nor does it depend on scientific procedures (Bennell et al., 2007). The techniques and procedures involved in criminal profiling are three as listed and discussed below. These are the diagnostic evaluation, the crime scene analysis, and the investigative psychology.

The diagnostic evaluation is mainly a clinical approach and is not majorly applied in criminal profiling. The crime scene investigation on the other hand seeks to identify the various kinds of offenders by what they do at the crime scene and the way they leave it looking like. In most cases, the offenders are grouped into two individuals, the disorganized, and the organized offenders (Bennell et al., 2007). The disorganized offenders are those with little knowledge of the crime or are in a disturbed state of mind.

The organized offenders on the other hand are relatively straightforward and reasonably intelligent.

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