Behavioral Profiling Behavioral Scientists and Investigate Often Essay

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Behavioral Profiling

Behavioral scientists and investigate often rely on criminal profiling to narrow down the list of possible suspects in a crime scene or in a potentially threatening situation. This is primarily done by matching personal traits and behavioral patterns of criminals to the way in which the crime was committed and that can help in shrinking the large pool of suspects to a few which makes it relatively easier to solve the crime. (Douglas, J.E., Olshaker, M., 1986). Profiling has often been a target of intense debate by people who feel victimized by the process, however, it must be understood that profiling can never lead to one specific person. It can only help in providing leads to possible suspects and that too by means of their personality traits and behavioral past. In other words, a person who has not committed crimes and doesn't have suspicious behavior or personality traits need not worry about possible victimization even though there have been few cases. We can however say with some degree of confidence that pros of criminal profiling outweigh some of its cons. It is mostly like a police sketch that gives law enforcement personnel an idea of how the person may look but doesn't really pinpoint a single individual.

Criminal profiling has also been useful in pooling together various community resources. By the help of such profiles, police can make people aware of the potential threats and people possibly linked to those threats. That way community can help the police in providing leads if they see someone that matches the description provided by law enforcement. (Douglas, J.E., Olshaker, M. 1999).

Since the field of criminal profiling is vast and there are plenty of ways in which it can be done, it is must to rely on some of the most often used strategies.

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In my case for example, I would want to use the same strategy that FBI commonly uses to develop criminal profiles.

According to Douglas, Ressler, Burgess and Hartman law enforcement agencies would normally take five steps to develop a criminal profile which helps in the arrest of the right person or at least in the identification of the right suspect. These five stages are:

1. Inputs: data collection

In the very first step, all basic information about the crime and criminal are collected. These are not placed in any specific order but police focuses on collecting as much information about the crime scene as possible including physical evidence, eyewitness statements, crime scene details like photographs, time at which it possibly occurred, profile or place and collection of past records connected with victim. At this stage, it is important not to develop a profile right away because this is a preliminary stage which is collection of raw information and profiling at this stage can be wrong as it may bring personal prejudices and views into play.

2. Decision making or process stage

In the second stage, like all expert profiles, I as an investigator will also need to put the information in some logical order. In other words, this is the stage when information in given some meaning by focusing on patterns that might emerge and raising questions about the crime. In this stage it is important to ask questions like what kind of….....

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