Blog 12

Alison, Laurence; Goodwill, Alasdair; Almond, Louise; Van den Heuvel, Claudia; Winter, Jan “Pragmatic solutions to offender profiling and behavioral investigative advice.” Legal & Criminological Psychology, Feb2010, Vol. 15 Issue 1, p115-132. Web. 7 Apr. 2011

I did not originally pick this article, but this piece of writing was also about criminal profiling.  This article goes on to explain the different types of criminal profiling and why it is an effective way to understand the behavior of criminals.  In the reading, it said there were three approaches to criminal profiling: a criminal investigative approach, a clinical practitioner approach, and a scientific statistical approach.  Each of these three techniques are similar, but they each require a different set of skills.  The criminal investigative approach was developed by the FBI and it is the process of using all available knowledge along with knowledge they have obtained from investigation to get information on an offender.  The clinical practitioner approach did not have much information.  But, it had the same concept of using experience knowledge and intuition to form conclusions at a crime scene.  The third approach involves using analysis to infer an offender’s characteristics and physiological behavior.  This technique is similar to stereotyping, in the sense that you are predicting someone’s behavior based on what they should do.

With criminal profiling, it is assumed that all offenders will commit crimes in a similar manner.  If offenders do not behave rationally, it is almost impossible to predict their behavior.  You need to understand how someone will act to predict someone’s behavior.  Although this may not be considered a negative effect of stereotyping, it is still a form a stereotyping.  You are basing your decisions on the preconceptions you have.