Custom «Criminal Profiling» Essay Paper

Introduction

To my beloved readers, this guidebook will prove worthy in the course of attainment of justice in efficient ways. Criminal practices have more often than not been punished in way lighter methods due to lack of proper evidence by the aggrieved party. As an investigator I have had to liaise with the specialists in this field majorly psychiatrists and psychologists to dig deeper into methods of bringing to book seemingly hard-to-catch offenders. The input of intelligence forces i.e. the FBI has also given me a deeper insight into criminal profiling. This book is certain to help you to learn efficient methods that if applied practically would see punishment of criminal activities mete out appropriately.

First of all we have to understand what behavioral profiling is and later familiarize ourselves with its applications and evaluation. Behavioral profiling is the psychological analysis of an individual to establish his persona. It can also include training and intuitions (predictions based on common sense considering certain activities are purely determined by common sense). Empirical studies on human behavior have shown that one’s behavior mirrors a lot one’s personality justifying this activity as a psychological process aimed at analyzing one’s being in totality.  (Richard 2006).

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Criminal profiling therefore deals specifically with identifying patterns of criminal activities in suspected persons using the methods mentioned later in this guide book

Identifying components used in building a criminal profile

Criminal activities vary in size and nature and therefore different levels of profiling. However, we must realize that there are certain key elements that constitute any criminal profile its nature and size notwithstanding. A criminal profile would generally comprise information such as: Identifying the type of crime, description of the offender, the manner of execution of the crime, physical and non physical activities adopted by the offender (if any) , target group of the offender depending on the type of crime and consideration would also be given to the time and place where such activities are mostly recorded. Most crimes are however of an organized nature making it difficult to arrive at exact conclusions and so care should be taken to gather every relevant detail no matter how minute it would be to obtain a successful profile.

Identification of the nature of the crime is key to the profiling process as it helps the investigator to narrow his options into one region thereby quickening the process. Different categories of crime exist; burglary (this is the forced entry into another person’s house with intentions to steal), homicide (this is the illegal murdering of innocent people), rape cases (this is whereby a person is forced into indecent sexual acts without their consent) and arson practices (this is the crime of intentionally setting fire to another person’s building or property). Crimes like rape have basic actions such as physical bounding and assault, while homicide is known to mostly happen in vehicles. (Brent 2008).

Presence of peculiar objects at scene of incident like guns, and any other crude weapon could be an indicator of homicide. Since most crimes are mostly well organized, it is often difficult to obtain information about the offender. In the case of homicide, factors such as fingerprints on materials used by the offender would provide sufficient clues. Blood spill could also provide solutions while in remote cases items such as the wallet belonging to the offender would be obtained. For rape cases however, the victims (who mostly survive though full of trauma) would provide descriptions of the offenders. In certain events the offenders may always call the victims to threaten them and such activities would lead the investigators to the offenders through tracing of the calls. The manner of crime execution can be determined through the existence of materials in the scene of crime like for instance a homicide victim could have been shot, clobbered, strangled, suffocated or exposed to dangerous gas by the offender. All these methods could in one way or another provide useful information on the criminal. The criminal profile can also be boosted by identifying the target group of these crimes. Certain criminals always target a certain group of persons to execute their vices. For instance rapists will target either the young population made up of children of a certain age and the very elderly who just like the children would be vulnerable and too weak to wad them off. For those committing homicide they may tend to exhibit weird patterns and could often target a specific class of people who might be working and therefore driving or could still target children.

Such patterns should be established to identify whether or not such individuals are serial killers or persons possessed or better skill could be suffering from certain ailments leading to their obsessive acts. Burglars can also target a certain class of individuals maybe the single and staying alone type who might not be in a position to defend themselves when they come calling. The female group could also be a likely target for these burglars. Of importance could be the location and time of crime. Rape cases could be carried out in certain regions and at specific times while homicide incidences could be limited to certain locations. Depending on the level of organization, certain crimes can be without any tangible evidence to pin against them. Therefore more desperate measures such as victimology can be sourced to try and unravel the persons behind the crimes. This is the process whereby the surviving victims are questioned on certain important areas so as to provide information and any crucial facts thereby required. This method could be hard to use in the case of homicide as the victim would be dead. However, autopsies carried on the homicide individuals could also lead to establishment of key information such as finger prints and nature of injuries sustained thereby giving accounts of events preceding the crime.

Categories of evidence useful in the making of a behavioral profile.

There exist three distinct classes of evidences that can be used in creating an effective profile. These three categorized could be classified under primary, secondary and tertiary sources.  The method to adopt largely depends on the nature of the crime as certain methods are more preferred than others in different situations. Primary sources are those that the investigators observe first hand in the crime scenes. Most primary sources can be used to obtain information on the methods used for executing the crime and to build the sequence of events that led to the crime. Primary sources here include fingerprints of offenders on the materials used to execute the crime, blood stains that might have resulted from a tussle between the victim and offender. Samples of these blood stains can be ran through DNA testing to help in defining he offender in the preparation of a profile. Other primary sources would also include careless acts of the criminals such as dropping of wallets that would lead the investigators to them. Scientific applications such as autopsies can also be adopted in the event antecedent activities are to be determined. (Kenneth 1998).

Clearly these acts are best applied in homicidal instances and only in instances that the criminals were not organized enough to clean their acts- something hat rarely happens. This brings into play the secondary sources. Secondary sources are best used in instances where the criminals were so careful that no evidence was left. In this case, information is obtained from other sources. These sources are mostly the victims themselves and this process is known as victimology. Care should be taken in treating he victims as the information lies with them entirely. This kind of method however is majorly adopted in incidences of rape and burglary. The last category of evidences can be referred to as the tertiary group. Here the evidence obtained by an investigator is not visual but purely logical in nature. The investigator relies heavily on intuition and common sense to arrive at conclusions. As a matter of fact this class is not used by every researcher and calls for proper training to apply. Its application could cut across all the groups of crime. Each category of evidence discussed herein could come in handy at any given time. The best results however, can be achieved if all these methods could be applied in a single case. Considering all the factors discussed above would lead to creation of an efficient criminal profile of any criminal. Remember an effective criminal profile would lead to an efficient judicial process.