Criminal Profiling Methods in Action

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)

Carson, D. (2011). Investigative psychology and law: Towards collaboration by focusing on evidence and inferential reasoning. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 8(1), 74-89. doi:10.1002/jip.133

Devery, C. (2010). Criminal profiling and criminal investigation. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 26(4), 393-409. doi:10.1177/1043986210377108

Kocsis, R. N., & Palermo, G. B. (2016). Criminal profiling as expert witness evidence: The implications of the profiler validity research. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 49(Part A), 55-65. doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2016.05.011

Kocsis, R. N., & Palermo, G. B. (2015). Disentangling criminal profiling: Accuracy, homology, and the myth of trait-based profiling. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 59(3), 313-332. doi:10.1177/0306624X13513429