Investigative Psychology Program Transcript

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NARRATOR: In this video program Dr. Gabrielle Salfati explains investigative psychology. She describes how an investigative psychologist studies, analyzes, and assists, in solving crime. She also explains how experts in other areas of psychology and law, help locate evidence and assist in the apprehension and conviction of criminals.

DR. GABRIELLE SALFATI: Investigative psychology is really about how psychology can contribute to criminal investigations across the board. One component would be, how do we retrieve information from the crime scene? How do we retrieve information from witnesses and victims, and also offenders? Another component of investigative psychology is how the police make decisions based on that information.

The third component of investigative psychology, is what is more commonly known as offender profiling, or crime scene analysis. Offender profiling allows the police to prioritize suspects in order to find the most likely offender that they want to concentrate on for the next stage of the investigation, which is normally the interviewing stage. And the idea is that you want to be able to narrow down this group of suspects in order to find the most likely suspects.

Let me give you an example. At any crime scene, you have an enormous amount of information that the police deals with and collects. Traditionally, what we're focused on most, is the forensic side of the crime scene. So this is blood, DNA, hair, footprints, anything that is biological that can be tested in a lab using chemistry techniques. And normally, nowadays, we're really looking at DNA.

Now the thing that all of those things have in common, is one, DNA is the most likely thing that's going to get someone convicted, because it is such a reliable tool. But he can also not be present at the crime scene, or is can have been compromised in some way. If it was collected in the wrong way, then it will be compromised, and you can't use it. And some crime scenes just don't have forensic evidence.

But what every single crime scene has, and I'm going to use homicide as an example. But every single crime scene has behavioral evidence. What I mean by behavioral evidence, is if the offender picks a particular type of victim, then we have that particular type of victim, for example, a female. If the victim was stabbed, then we have knife wounds. If the victim was sexually assaulted, we have that information. Even if the offender will kill a victim and then remove them from the original crime scene, just like they've done with the forensic evidence, we will know that the offender has removed the victim from the original crime

scene. Even an offender who removes forensic evidence tells us something about who that offender is. All of this is part of the behavioral analysis of the crime scene.

Now this method became very, very popular in the 1970s and 1980s, originally, when the FBI highlighted that they wanted to try to understand serial sexual murderers. And they did a number of interviews on the topics. And after that, it became a very popular technique. It became the new in technique in the field. And a lot of people jumped on the bandwagon and wanted to be involved, and provide offender profiles, based on crime scene analysis.

Very early on in the field, most of the people who were involved with this, were either investigators, very well-trained investigators with an extensive experience behind them, or clinicians, or practitioners who had been involved on a day to day basis with offenders. So they had an understanding of criminal behavior, because they had interviewed them, they had worked in prisons, they had worked in hospitals, and so on. As the technique grew in popularity during the 1980s, some people wanted to bring it into court as evidence. People started asking the question, how valid and reliable is offender profiling?

And in the early 1990s, almost as a response to the call of what was going on in the field, the field of investigative psychology was created in the UK. And the premise of this field, and really the focus, was to try to employ scientific methods to try to evaluate profiling as a method, and also trying to advance it as a science. And there was one study, actually, it was very interesting. And they really highlighted the problem that profiling had in the very early years. And that was a study by Alison and his colleagues, that actually looked at real profiles that had been written by people who claim that they were experts.

In these profiles, what they essentially were, was a description of who the offender was, based on the crime scene evidence that the profiler had worked with. So this is the crime file, the photograph, sometimes the autopsy report, etc, so a normal police crime file. And based on this, they wrote a report. And in that report, they came up with a pen picture of who the offender was.

Across the number of reports that they analyzed in the study, in total they found 4,000 claims across all of them, about who the offender was. So this is something that could be used to identify the offender. What they also found, was that over 80% of that information was unsubstantiated. What that means, is that the profiler would say things like, this may be the offender, this may not be. They could be young. They could be old. It is likely that they may be, there is evidence that, but there were no numbers attached.

So if an investigator had to come and use that report, they couldn't really say to which likelihood they could rely on this information. So it didn't say, it's 50% likely

that the offender was a male. It is 70% likely that the offender lives within one mile of the crime scene. None of this information was present.

So what that study really highlighted, was that the way the information was presented, was presented in a way that people could read it whichever way they wanted. Because they could say well, they could be white, they could not be. If they thought they were, then they could use that profile. And then they would find it useful. And then you would think that that profile would actually help them in their investigations.

But what it really highlighted, is was what we need is the numbers. Because how can we possibly present it in court as evidence, or even use it in an investigation, unless we know exactly what components of the crime are the most important to focus on? So let's say you have two pieces of evidence in there. The offender is likely to be male. And the offender lives within one mile of the crime scene. If it is more likely that the offender lives within one mile of the crime scene because there's 85% likelihood, then you should focus on that one, rather than the other component. And that should be your first step in using the profile to identify the most likely offender, to reduce the suspect pool. That's essentially what profiling is supposed to be doing.

But what is important to know, is that the reason why none of those numbers were there, is because the research wasn't there. Nobody had done the research to say, well, how far do offenders travel? How likely is it that they have a criminal background? If they do have a criminal background, what would it be, for this specific crime that you're looking at? The research simply wasn't there. And that's why investigate psychology was created, was really to provide the research that could be used to see whether there is an association between the crime scene and who the offender is.

Another thing that is at the forefront in offender profiling, is not just trying to identify who the offender is, but is also looking at if an offender commits several crimes, ie, if you have a serial offender, and that could be any kind of offender. It could be what we know as a serial homicide offender, a serial rapist, or more likely, the large volume crimes, a serial burglar, for example.

But one of the things that you need to assess, is when you have a number of crimes in a community, how can we determine if these were committed by the same offender? What is it that ties these different crimes together? And the idea here is that we're trying to look for the psychological pattern that carries over from one crime to another. And that pattern might not be, what Sherlock Holmes would call the clue, or the specific individual behavior that might stay the same. It might actually be what is behind the behavior. And I'll give you an example.

So what we're really trying to understand, is the psychological meaning of behavior. So let's say that you had, one example that I was use in class, is let's

imagine that you had 10 rapes. And all of these rapes, what they have in common, that single behavior that they have in common, is that the victim was gagged. Now if you're an investigator and you're focusing on the specific behavior, you would say that these 10 crimes were linked.

But what about if you then suddenly get an 11th crime, and that victim is bound? If you're focusing on that individual behavior, what you would say, is that 11th crime is not linked to that series. And this is when it becomes really, really important to understand that it's not enough sometimes to look at the individual behaviors. But look at the psychological meaning behind it. And that's really what investigative psychology is trying to do.

Because imagine that for this specific offender, what was really, really important, was to control the victim. And he wanted to control the victim, because he wanted to complete the rape. And that was what's most important to him.

So he comes across victim number one, and in order to complete the rape, he needs to control her. And she was screaming. Obviously, she was trying to call for help. And this is just an example. But she tried to call for help. He's not really that interested in what she's saying, but he needs her to be quiet, so he can complete the rape. And so he will gag her.

Now because he gagged her, she doesn't scream. She doesn't get help. He can complete the rape. This is a useful technique for him. So he will continue using this throughout the series. But what about if his last, and the 11th victim, didn't scream, but she tried to run away instead? We have to remember what's important for this guy. And he wants to control the rape and the scene itself, so he can complete it.

So there's no use for him to gag her, because he gets no excitement from gagging his victims. He's purely doing this as a practical matter. Now she's trying to run away. So what does he do? He binds her. So essentially, by moving beyond the individual physical behavior and trying to understand the psychological meaning to the offender of doing that behavior, we now link those crimes on a completely different level.

So how many different types are there? And in one original study, the first study that was actually done in investigative psychology, actually came up with these types. This was a study done by Canter and Heritage, where they showed that their one type was this controlling type of rapist. Another one was what they called a pseudo intimate type of rapist. This is the rapist who were doing things like kissing and complementing the victim, and talking to her, and establishing some kind of, in his head, a relationship with the victim. And then they had different other types.

All of them were very different in terms of the psychological meaning of what the offender was doing. And therefore, they were engaging in different types of behaviors. By understanding that, that can help us link crimes over time.

However, what we must remember is that people change over time, and do not necessarily remain consistent. Things like the environment, the situation, will change people's behavior. And one thing that we don't have an understanding of, is what situation changes what type of behavior. So when we're linking crimes, which one should we focus on? Should we focus on behavior A, or behavior B?

And these are some of the things that investigative psychology are trying to add to the field. So that ultimately, when a report is written, giving advice on whether a series is actually committed by one offender, or multiple offenders, who the offender is. We can rely on the scientific literature to back it up, so that it actually is based on expert knowledge.

This is a situation where the police is called in to an apparent suicide. And they have to make an evaluation about whether this really was a suicide, or whether it was a homicide. There's a number of different players here. The police will make certain conclusions based on their investigation techniques. Crime scene investigators can provide some of that information for the police to make that decision. The medical examiner's office will actually provide a lot of information as well, in terms of being able to give information to the police based on the autopsy. And investigative psychology can provide information in terms of the analysis of the behavior itself, and of the crime scene as it is in totality.

And essentially, what we would do from an investigative psychology standpoint, is you'd use what we understand based on our empirical studies of what is likely and what is not likely. So if you find someone who has had severe psychological problems leading up to the event, and who's been talking to people about committing suicide, who might have been on antidepressants, who then had something traumatic happen prior to the event. These are all ideas that you can build up to really build a case that this might have actually been a suicide.

But if you're suddenly seeing a case that looks more staged, and where there's none of the evidence that actually points towards suicide, that is when you have to look at into more details. And you're really using your numbers. For example, some of the things that have come up prior to that, is someone, let's say who's pregnant, eight months pregnant, is found dead, apparently by her own hand. Now what is the likelihood that someone who is pregnant, and is about to give birth, which is supposed to be a very happy moment, will commit suicide? What do we know about the mental state of women around eight months?

Those are some of the things that we would look at from the literature. And then we would then start building up that picture to get an understanding of whether it's actually likely that someone would have committed a suicide or not. Was

there a note? One of the big things that people always focus on, is there a note? Did the person say why they did it? It is very frustrating and very traumatic for the family members not to have a note, because they won't understand.

But how many people actually leave a note? Do we know what the figure is? And if there was a note at the crime scene, is there anything about that note, in terms of what it said, that can give us an idea about whether this was actually written by someone who was in a mental state, or in a mental frame of mind, that would lead to suicide? Is there anything that we understand about the written document?

And there's actually a lot of research on that, particularly those things on suicide notes, that people have done to try to distinguish between fabricated ones, coerced ones, so someone's telling someone to write something, or a real one. And that falls into a lot of the forensic work that has been done, also on threat note analysis. So what can we say about someone who writes something down? Is this a threat that they're going to carry out? Or is it just a threat? Or in fact, is it a real threat at all? Or is it just a hoax? So these are some of the things that we would look at in terms of a psychological autopsy.

Investigative psychology is still a very young field. It started in the 1980s, 1990s. So in terms of science, it's still very young. And what we know about offender profiling, is still in very, very early days.

So a lot of the people who are involved in this field at the moment, fall into two separate groups. The main role is really to create the science. So that is the researcher. So these are people who are going through a master's program to get certified in investigative psychology, or at least in the principles of investigative psychology, and then going on to do Ph.Ds, and become researchers, and ultimately, academics who are feeding in their research into the field.

And we're building up the knowledge base now. And we're getting to the point where, even if we don't know the answers, and we do know some of the answers now. But we know the right questions to ask. Which is almost more important at this stage.

The other outlet in terms of investigative psychology, is that really what you're being trained in when you're learning about investigative psychology, is how to analyze criminal behavior, and how to understand criminal behavior over and beyond just what you see, based on general knowledge of psychology. So this is social psychology, environmental psychology, abnormal psychology, and all the other sub areas of psychology. You plug that in to understanding criminal behavior.

And what we've seen a lot of in recent years, are graduates of investigative psychology going into crime analysis. So these are the people who are lending the civilian support to the police to analyze crime scenes, and then provide, if you want, advice in terms of where the investigation should focus on. Some of those have ended up in jobs where they're working in liaison with agencies that deal with intelligence, crime analysis, all different levels, both at the starting level. And some of these people now are leading research centers, both within the police, and within academia, in terms of trying to take the field forwards.

Investigative Psychology Additional Content Attribution

FOOTAGE: Getty Images 164741386 Ferrerivideo / iStock / Getty Images Plus / Getty Images

Getty Images 476972415 aijohn784 / iStock / Getty Images Plus / Getty Images

Getty Images 466603195 Luka Lajst / iStock / Getty Images Plus / Getty Images

Getty Images 498191838 Luka Lajst / iStock / Getty Images Plus / Getty Images

Getty Images 509428192 KatarzynaBialasiewicz / iStock / Getty Images Plus / Getty Images

Getty Images 146917328 Milan Lipowski / iStock / Getty Images Plus / Getty Images

FBI Tactical The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). (2009). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fbi_Tactical.jpg

National Archives 5699616 Quesada, J. National Archives (2001, September 8). [Hurricane Gustav] New Orleans, LA, September 1, 2008 -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials at the Joint Field Office(JFO) Baton Rouge. Retrieved from https://research.archives.gov/id/5699616

National Archives 24478223 Rose, R. National Archives (2013, April 15). Boston, Mass., April 15, 2013 -- Members of the military and the FBI respond to the explosions at the Boston Marathon. Retrieved from https://research.archives.gov/id/24478223

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