Criminal profiling is the most efficient, and best strategy used by the criminal psychologist. Psychologist use it to understand and categorize a criminals behavior, in addition to that it is used as a tool to apprehend criminals. I believe this because of the extended research I have done in the past three months. I think that the definition of criminal profiling is important because it gives you a foundation and understandment of its benefits in the apprehension of criminals. “[criminal profiling] . . . is a technique for identifying the major personality, behavioral, and demographic characteristics of offenders based on an analysis of the crimes they committed”(Cook, Hinman 231). With out this many would think that criminal profiling is something a police officer does. I know this because I have asked people close to me what they thought criminal profiling was and there answer was “what the police do right?” Criminal profiling begins the process of criminal apprehension through a detailed analysis. With out the use of this technique we would have no idea what the sex, personality, or other important details about a criminal is, which is why we need to be using it more often. I believe that criminal profiling is effective because it is used daily to help find fugitives and a variety of criminals. It is used everyday by law enforcement because there are so many different types of criminal behavioral patterns that we need to understand as soon as possible. Without it, we may still only think there is one type of criminal. We all know it is not true because of criminal profiling. There are many different types of profiling among such offenders as hijackers, shoplifters, and sex offenders to identify just a few (Cook, Hinman 232). There is a different profile for each crime. This technique is used so much because it has been proven effective. If it were not an effective tool then why would there be criminal profilers or psychologists? With strapped budgets law enforcement is not going to use techniques and tools that are not productive.
Part of the process of criminal profiling is pre-determination. Pre-determination is done after the profile is complete. If we know a persons background on his/her life we are able to guess where they would go if they knew that they were in trouble, or by the severity of the crime we can guess what type of person the offender is. If a killer has killed a man the psychologist would look to see if he had a single mother when he was a child, and guessing from that he may guess that he went to his mothers after the murder. If this is done correctly then the criminal will hopefully be stopped before their next attack on others or him/herself due to guilt. I believe that when the criminal is unable to make their next attack the criminal profiler saved another victim from abuse and/or death. Where if you were to profile a future police officer, which is something the psychologist do, you’re not saving anyone’s life even though that it is important. Which in my opinion is justification for the use of criminal profiling over other strategies and how it is better than others.
A criminal profiler takes evidence from the crime scene to construct a profile.When this is completed it give police officer and detectives an idea of who they are looking form what type of person they are, sex, age, hair color, DNA match and so on. Without this information there would be a loss of important information that is vital to the rescue of a victim. This is completed in conjunction with the help of their partners from forensics. Even though they do get help they spend long hours everyday making it possible for victims to live. Without the criminal psychologist, it is my opinion that we would not have found children that have been abducted or stolen cars just to state a few crimes.
Criminal profiling helps with criminal investigations as well. “Profiling can (a) focus the investigation on more likely types of offenders and eliminate less likely ones, (b) suggest proactive strategies, (c) suggest investigative strategies, (d) suggest trial strategies . . .” (Cook, Hinman 234). They are able to do all of those things plus more. With a psychologist being capable of these things proves the are a vital variable to a very important equation. We need them in order to save lives because they have the ability to do more things than a regular person. They can look at things more out of the box rather than a police officer that is limited by him training. This is important because we can use them in more ways than one since a criminal profiler is most likely a criminal psychologist. Psychologist/Profiler can find different ways to word things to “crack” a criminal when individuals untrained in criminal psychology cannot. With out profiling we would not be able to understand a criminal. Criminal behavior is better understood because the psychologist/profiler puts together all of the puzzle pieces presenting law enforcement with a complete picture of their obstacles.
[Image]Criminal profiling will forever be used even if a few individuals in law enforcement do not think that it works as well as it really does. It is because of criminal profiling we have saved not only victims, but future victims, and offenders as well. People must see that we need to utilize this tool more because it works.(934)
Work cited: Cook and Hinman. "Criminal Profiling: science and art." 15.230 (2011):230-241. Web. 7 Jun 2011.
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