CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY and FORENSIC TECHNOLOGY a Collaborative Approach to Effective Profiling

CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY and FORENSIC TECHNOLOGY A Collaborative Approach to Effective Profiling Edited by Grover Maurice Godwin, Ph.D. Research Assistant Professor Justice Center The University of Alaska –Anchorage CRC Press Boca Raton London New York Washington, D.C. © 2001 CRC Press LLC Front Cover: Helen M. Godwin Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Criminal psychology and forensic technology : a collaborative approach to effective profiling / editor, Maurice Godwin. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8493-2358-4 1. Criminal psychology. 2. Forensic sciences. I. Godwin, Maurice. HV6080 .C734 2000 364.3—dc21 00-064150 CIP This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources. Reprinted material is quoted with permission, and sources are indicated. A wide variety of references are listed. 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For organizations that have been granted a photocopy license by the CCC, a separate system of payment has been arranged. The consent of CRC Press LLC does not extend to copying for general distribution, for promotion, for creating new works, or for resale. Specific permission must be obtained in writing from CRC Press LLC for such copying. Direct all inquiries to CRC Press LLC, 2000 N.W. Corporate Blvd., Boca Raton, Florida 33431. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation, without intent to infringe. © 2001 by CRC Press LLC No claim to original U.S. Government works International Standard Book Number 0-8493-2358-4 Library of Congress Card Number 00-064150 Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 Printed on acid-free paper Preface Criminal psychology, forensic technology, and profiling. These three disciplines have received a wealth of media attention over the past decade. Consequently, due to public and professional interest, a plethora of books have been published. The technique of offender profiling, or classifying offenders according to their behaviors and characteristics, has been developing slowly as a possible investigative tool since 1841 and the publication of the The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Alan Poe, in which detective C. Auguste Dupin demonstrated the ability to follow the thought patterns of a companion while the pair strolled through Paris without speaking a word. Some years later, the art of using psychology to profile a criminal was used in 1888 in England, where Dr. Thomas Bond, a lecturer in forensic medicine, produced what could be recognized as a psychological profile of the perpetrator of the Whitechapel murders. Dr. Bond wrote to the head of the Criminal Investigation Division (Rumbelow, 1987:140): The murderer must have been a man of physical strength and great coolness and daring. There is no evidence that he had an accomplice. He must, in my opinion, be a man subject to periodic attacks of Homicidal and erotic mania. The character of the mutilations indicates that the man may be in a condition sexually, that may be called Satyriasis. It is of course possible that the Homi- cidal impulse may have developed from a revengeful or brooding condition of mind, or that religious mania may have been the original disease, but I do not think that either hypothesis is likely. The murderer in external appearance is quite likely to be a quite inoffensive looking man probably middle-age and neatly and respectable dressed. I think he might be in the habit of wearing a cloak or overcoat or he could hardly escape notice in the streets if the blood on his hands or clothes were visible. Assuming the murderer to be such a person as I have just described, he would be solitary and eccentric in his habits. Also, he is likely to be a man without regular occupation, but with some small income or pension. He is possibly living among respectable persons who have some knowledge of his character and habits who have grounds for suspicion that he is not quite right in his mind at times. Such person would probably be unwilling to communicate and would be suspicious of the police for fear of trouble or notoriety, whereas if there were prospects of a reward it might overcome his scruples. © 2001 CRC Press LLC Dr. Bond based his profile only on his professional experience, yet the claims he made would probably be accepted as thoughtful and intelligent by most police investigators today. Since its emergence, offender profiling has been described by several dif- ferent terms: psychological profiling, criminal profiling, criminal personality profiling, and criminal investigative analysis. Regardless of the descriptive label applied, profiling as an investigative tool today represents a less–than–educated attempt to provide law enforcement agencies with detailed information about the behavior of an unknown individual who has committed a crime. Most published accounts of profiling, which detail the methods employed by various individuals, have tended to take the form of semi-autobiographical books and journalistic articles rather than systematic academic work and, hence, are difficult to evaluate for accuracy or a scientific point of view. For example, most offender profiles emphasize the various psychological functions that murder has for the offender — not what varieties of action the murder actually consists of. Consequently, these profiles make little distinction between the overt crime scene behavior as it occurs in murders and the psychodynamic processes that produce that behavior. Hence, there is little attempt by profilers to differentiate aspects of the offender’s motivations and life-style from aspects of his offending behavior. Heuristics and Biases in Decision Making Aside from a few studies (e.g., Hunting Serial Predators, Godwin, 2000), most published accounts that claim new findings in criminal profiling or serial offending are often a part of the cultural baggage passed down over the years, and are fraught with the frailties of human thinking. Conclusions are pre- dominantly based on what has been written in the past. For example, some profilers claim that patterns associated with serial offending occur as a result of recognizable mental illness or mental disorder in the offender, and these disorders can be classified using a personality theory. However, psychological theory should never be treated as a vocabulary by so-called profilers or expert consultants to further their personal opinions, rather than a set of empirically derived hypotheses open to scientific analysis. For instance, in a newspaper article about Robert Yates, a serial murderer recently captured in Spokane, Washington, a former homicide investigator, stated that the Yates case demonstrated that serial killers are individuals whose behavior cannot be pre- dicted, yet a recently published journal article written by the investigator describes a theoretical typology by which sexual murderers’ motivations are profiled. This is just one of the ways in which individuals attempt to blur the facts when it comes to taking responsibility for inaccurate profiles and the failure to link unsolved crimes. © 2001 CRC Press LLC Confirmation Bias Numerous studies have demonstrated that people generally give excessive value to confirmatory information; that is, information which supports a particular position (Schwenk, 1988). Confirmation bias refers to a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to look for what confirms one’s beliefs, and ignore or undervalue the relevance of contradictory information. This type of thinking results from deductive inferencing without supporting inductive research. For example, Wiseman, West, and Stemman (1996) found that in cases where psychics had contributed to police investigations, the psychics and the investigators they advised were only likely to remember those aspects of the case they were correct about and forget the incorrect assertions. Gilovich (1993) suggests that the most likely reason for excessive influence of confirmatory information is that it is easier to deal with cognitively. In other words, it is much easier to see how a piece of information supports a position than how it might count against it. This form of confirmatory thinking is prevalent in criminal investigations — especially serial crime investigations — and often results in misleading information and wasted man hours. Selective Thinking Selective thinking is the process whereby a person focuses on favorable evidence while ignoring unfavorable evidence. This kind of thinking is sometimes referred to as “tunnel vision.” Selective thinking occurs when an investigator or profiler rejects alternative explanations in favor of simpler ones. This form of thinking is referred to as “Occam’s Razor.” Post Hoc Fallacy Post hoc fallacy, also called post hoc ergo proper hoc (after this therefore because of this) fallacy, is based upon the mistaken notion that simply because one event follows another, the first event is the cause of the second one. This form of reasoning in criminal investigations is the basis for many erroneous conclusions and failed investigations. For example, you have a “vision” that a body is going to be found in the water near a tree, and later a body is found in the water near a tree.

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