Offender profiling and criminal differentiation

Abstract

Purpose. The psychological hypotheses that form the foundations for 'Offender Profiling' are identified and the research that has tested them is reviewed.Argument. 'Offender profiling' is taken to be the derivation of inferences about a criminal from aspects of the crime(s) s/he has committed. For this process to move beyond deduction based on personal opinion and anecdote to an empirically based science a number of aspects of criminal activity need to be distinguished and examined. The notion of a hierarchy of criminal differentiation is introduced to highlight the need to search for consistencies and variations at many levels of that hierarchy. However, current research indicates that the key distinctions are those that differentiate, within classes of crime, between offences and between offenders,. This also leads to the hypothesis of a circular ordering of criminal actions, analogous to the colour circle, a 'radex'.The radex model, tested using Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS) procedures, allows specific hypotheses to be developed about important constituents of criminal differentiation:Salience; MDS analyses reveal the importance of the frequency of criminal actions as the basis on which the significance of those actions can be established. Inference; under limited conditions it is possible to show associations between the characteristics of offenders and the thematic focus of their crimes. Models of DifferentiationIn general these results provide support for models of thematic consistency that link the dominant themes in an offender's crimes to characteristic aspects of his/her lifestyle and offending history. Implications.Much of what passes for 'offender profiling' in practice and as reported in the factual and fictional media has no basis in empirical research. However, there are some promising results emerging in some areas of study. These results are most likely to be of value to police investigations when incorporated into decision support systems and the training of police officers. The results do also provide new insights into the psychology of crime.

Consistency in crime site selection: An investigation of crime sites used by serial sex offenders across crime series

“…However, not much is known when it comes to person-oriented offenses such as sex crimes. Here again, still, prior research shows that, while the environmental decision and selection of the site might be influenced by dynamic factors, serial offenders often use the same geographic and ecological space and tend to pattern themselves geographically (e.g., Beauregard, Proulx, Rossmo, Leclerc, & Allaire, 2007;Canter, 2000;LeBeau, 1987). In a recent study, Lundrigan, Czarnomski, and Wilson (2010) examined the consistency displayed by serial sex offenders in regards to the crime location and characteristics of the crime site selected -what they refer to as environmental consistency.…”

Burglars’ Specialisation: Development of a Thematic Approach in Investigative Psychology

“…As mentioned, a considerable amount of research (reviewed by Canter, 2000) has found non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) to be useful for finding the underlining themes. SSA is one of the MDS methods that represents the relationship between variables as distances in a geometric space.…”

“…Clarke and Cornish (1985) point out that it will usually be necessary to make finer distinctions between crimes than those provided by legal categories, pointing out that residential burglaries are different from commercial burglaries, although are legally just 'burglaries'. Canter (2000) demonstrates the effectiveness of a thematic approach to the study of criminals' actions. He points to the need to identify the dominant 'themes' amongst variables that characterise an offence rather than focussing on very detailed consideration of specific actions.…”

“…Canter (2000) uses the analogy of the discrimination of colours. For most perceptual tasks the underlying dimension of wavelength is not especially helpful in describing the psychological experience of colours.…”

A Language Modelling Approach to Linking Criminal Styles with Offender Characteristics

“…In previous studies [3,4], features have been identified by means of content analysis of the text. Typically, a researcher reads all the documents and identify a set of features.…”