This study compared the accuracy for the two general approaches to criminal profiling, inductive and deductive. Participants were 213 college students who participated in a 1-hour training session. Participants in the experimental groups were trained in either the inductive or deductive approach to profiling. Participants in the control group were trained in a crime topic unrelated to profiling (rape and sexual assault prevention). Following the training session, participants were asked to review a double sexual homicide case and then profile the offender by completing the Profiling Offender characteristics Questionnaire. Participants trained in the inductive profiling approach were more accurate when profiling the offender’s physical characteristics. Furthermore, the inductive profiling approach led to higher overall accuracy scores compared to the control condition. These results suggest that training naïve profilers to use the inductive approach may improve the accuracy of offender profiles in sexual homicide cases.

This study compared the accuracy of criminal profiles produced by individuals versus profiles produced by teams of two. Participants were 239 college students who were randomly assigned to work alone or in a team. Participants were asked to read a double sexual homicide case, profile the offender, and answer the Profiling Offender Characteristics Questionnaire. The results indicate that although novice profiler teams only slightly outperformed individuals on overall profile accuracy, teamwork significantly improved profiling accuracy for the cognitive characteristics of the offender. In contrast, teams and individuals showed similar profile accuracy for all other facets of the offender. These results may reflect the type of reasoning used by teams and individuals to profile different offender characteristics.

The disparity between the ongoing use, the overall positive attitudes towards criminal profiling and the lack of empirical evidence for its validity is also referred to as criminal profiling illusion. Associated risks for society range from misled police investigations, hindered apprehensions of the actual offender(s), and wrongful convictions of innocent citizens to mistrust in the police and their methods. Research on potential explanations to the Criminal Profiling Illusion is still in its infancy but assumes that people receive and adopt incorrect messages favouring the accuracy and utility of criminal profiling. One suggested mechanism through which individuals may acquire such incorrect messages is the consumption of fictional crime-related media which typically present criminal profiling as highly accurate, operationally useful and leading to the apprehension of the offender(s). By having some relation to reality but presenting a distorted picture of criminal profiling, fictional crime-related media may blur the line between fiction and reality thereby increasing the risk for the audience to mistake fiction for fact. Adopting a cultivation approach adequate to examine media effects on one’s perception, the present study is the first to investigate whether the perception of criminal profiling may be influenced by the consumption of fictional crime-related media based on a correlation study. Although the results provide support for the assumption that misperceptions of criminal profiling are widely spread in the general population and associated with the consumption of fictional crime-related media, the found cultivation effects are small and must be interpreted cautiously. Considering that even small effects may have the potential to influence real-life decision-making, they may still be relevant and affect the society at large.

Thesis advisor: Bonnie Jefferson / Images of crime and authorities' attempts to protect society from evil, which saturate dramatic programming on television, have the potential to influence public perception of crime and of crime-solving tools used in the real world. Although "Criminal Minds," a popular broadcast series, shares this potential, it distinguishes itself from others of its genre through its use of criminal profiling as its crime solving mechanism. Using standards provided in Douglas et al.'s "Crime Classification Manual: A Standard System for Investigating and Classifying Violent Crimes, Second Edition," the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition," and the "Hare Psychopathy Checklist Revised" as theoretical frameworks, this Communication thesis examines how the criminal profiling depictions of two "Criminal Minds" episodes conform to established criminal profiling conventions utilized by law enforcement. Overall, the results of these analyses suggest that the criminal profiling portrayals in the episodes "L.D.S.K." and "Fear and Loathing" adhere to legitimate real life criminal profiling considerations. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Communication Honors Program. / Discipline: Communication Department.

Gärningsmannaprofilering (GMP) är en polisiär metod som används vid svårlösta utredningar. I Sverige praktiseras metoden av en central grupp vid Rikskriminalpolisen, den såkallade GMP-gruppen. Studiens övergripande syfte är att förstå och förklara GMP som polisiär metod, samt undersöka metodens effektivitet, korrekthet och vetenskaplighet. Ett särskilt syfte är att testa inlärningsteorin och rutinaktivitetsteorin gentemot GMP-metoden för diskutera eventuella samband. Studien är kvalitativt orienterad och bygger på den hermeneutiska teorin om tolkning av källor. Studien bygger på en omfattande systematisk litteraturstudie i kombination med två intervjuer. Sammanfattningsvis kan man säga att de slutsatser som analysen har är att GMP är en metod som i många fall tycks vara effektiv och som ofta genererar korrekta gärningsmannaprofiler. Dock behövs det mer kunskap om GMPs vetenskapliga förankring. Det har även visat sig att det finns ett samband mellan GMP och både rutinaktvitetsteorin och inlärningsteorin. Sambandet med inlärningsteorin är dock marginellt.

This study investigated whether watching crime related television shows affected accuracy of psychological profiles for a sexual homicide offender. The television shows in the study were a fiction drama with a profiling element, a fiction drama without a profiling element, a nonfiction show with a profiling element, a nonfiction show without a profiling element, and a fiction drama with no crime element at all. Participants were 290 college students who watched a television show and then profiled a sexual homicide offender. High self-exposure to crime related television shows and experimental exposure to profiling related television shows were associated with greater accuracy for profiling certain aspects of the offender and/or offense. In addition, gender interacted with crime show viewing for certain types of profile accuracy.

Criminal profiling Abstract The purpose of my thesis is to analyse criminal profiling, one of the disciplines of forensic psychology used by law enforcement authorities in their effort to capture offender of a crime. The reason for my research is my interest in the criminal law in general, mainly in the psychological aspects of work of law enforcement authorities with individual offenders. The thesis is composed of three chapters, each of them dealing with different aspects of criminal profiling. Chapter One is introductory and defines basic terminology of criminal profiling and the essence of criminal profiling in general. The chapter is subdivided into five parts, which deals with the term of criminal profiling, its development, particular delicts suitable for profiling, the manner of creating a profile and its efficiency in the criminal proceedings in Czech Republic. Chapter Two examines the best known approaches to criminal profiling, its methods and typology. The chapter consists of five parts. Part One focuses on the different approaches to criminal profiling. Part Two investigates the deductive and inductive methods of criminal profiling. Part Three addresses the issue of the best known computer databases used in criminal profiling, ViCLAS and VICAP. Part Four focuses on geographic profiling, a...

Název diplomové práce v anglickém jazyce, abstrakt v anglickém jazyce a tři klíčová slova v anglickém jazyce Psychological profiling of an offender Abstract The subject of this diploma thesis is the method called psychological profiling (also called criminal profiling or offender profiling), which was created in the 1970s by the American FBI to help investigators to solve serious violent crimes, such as serial murders or rapes. It involves working out the characteristics of an offender by examining the characteristics of the crime scene and the crime itself. Its aim is to create a profile of a likely offender, therefore it is usually perceived as a useful tool by law enforcement agencies when regular forensic methods fail to reveal the indentity of an unknown suspect. The main goal of this thesis is to provide a comprehensive view of this method, including its advantages and disadvantages, free from media distortion. The thesis consists of four main chapters. The first chapter explains the term psychological profiling and its roots and definitions, focuses on the history of the method and its most significant approaches - crime analysis, investigative psychology and behavioral analysis. Further in this chapter, I describe the ideal characteristics and background of an expert creating a profile. The last...

Broad personality or global traits are unlikely to assist in solving capital crimes, so forensic psychologists have begun to focus on characteristics of the crime to create differentiating profiles. The purpose of this study was to determine if offender and victim characteristics and method of murder could provide cluster profiles differentiating familial relationship between offender and victim. Guided by classical conditioning theory and social learning theory, an archival database of 147 capital offenders responsible for 506 victims was analyzed. Cluster analysis yielded 3 distinct profiles. Compared to other clusters, Cluster 1 offenders tended to be Black and unfamiliar with their victims, who tended to be male between 20 and 50 years old that were typically shot. Cluster 2 offenders tended to be White and familiar with their typically female victims under the age of 20 who they typically murdered by use of blunt force or strangulation. Cluster 3 offenders were distinguished from the other 2 clusters only by having accounted for 90.6% of all victims who were stabbed, but no other associations with variables in the data set were discovered to explain this finding. Though limited in sample size, range of variables, and supplemental insights that could have been gained from case files or interviews, the results contribute to positive social change with offender-victim characteristics and method of murder profiles that begin to differentiate the familial offender-victim relationship and that future research can prospectively build on to create retrospective profiling models, which could potentially lead to resolving unsolved serial murder cases.

This study sets out to explore the relationship between news media coverage on serial killers and their behavior. As a result of the lack of previous research on this topic, utilizing past research on a few historically well-known serial killers and news media reports about those serial killers, this study attempts to determine if news media has any effect on a serial killer’s behavior prior to apprehension. After a review of the history of serial murder and the past findings about serial murderers, as well as background on the history of the media coverage of crime, this study will look closely at the media coverage and behavior of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer; David Berkowitz, Son of Sam; and John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, the D.C. Snipers. These three cases received unparalleled attention from the media and involved a unique two-way communication between the offenders and the media/police. The relatively new role of the Public Information Officer in law enforcement agencies will be briefly reviewed to examine the expansion of their role in relation to considering the impact the media has on serial murderer behavior. The subsequent findings of this research will aid in increasing knowledge of serial killer behavior in relation to news media coverage so that news media can be a potential tool used by law enforcement to better control and predict serial killer behavior and aid in their apprehension.