Assignment
Assignment: Criminal Profiling Methods in Action
You can choice one
Criminal investigative analysts must ask many questions before they determine the type of approach to use to investigate a crime. Is there enough evidentiary information to formulate a theory on why the crime occurred? Who might have committed the crime, based on deductive reasoning? Are there any general premises that can be inductively applied? Would descriptive statistics (i.e., UCR, local demographic) be useful? Would group statistics (i.e., types of sexual offenders) be useful? The answers to these questions will help determine the best possible method to use in investigating the crime.
In this Assignment, you will determine the best approach to use in investigating a high-profile case in the news.
To prepare for this Assignment:
- Review the Learning Resources concerning concepts of criminal profiling.
- Select a high-profile criminal case currently in the media. This could be a homicide, sexual assault, or other violent crime.
By Day 7
In a 2- to 3-page paper
- Briefly, describe the case and provide a link to where you found the case information.
- Explain whether you would use deductive or inductive reasoning while profiling the offender and why.
- Explain how you would use nomothetic or ideographic methods to investigate the crime.
- Explain whether you would use a clinical or actuarial approach (or both) and why.
- Support your responses with references from the Learning Resources. Justify your rationale with examples.
SOME READING
Bartol, C. R. & Bartol, A. M. (2010). Criminal & behavioral profiling. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
- Chapter 2, Crime Scene Profiling (pp. 21-56)
Turvey, B. E. (2012). Criminal profiling: An introduction to behavioral evidence analysis (4th ed.). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
- Chapter 3, Alternative Methods of Criminal Profiling (pp. 67-100)