Pros And Cons Of Crime Scene Profiling

With a plethora of movies, shows, and books about crime scene profiling these days, one might believe that F.B.I. criminal profiling is an exact science. These dramatic stories lead their audience to view F.B.I. profilers as scientific experts who are able to make pin point predictions of a killer’s entire life, leading to an arrest. The reality, however, is that crime scene profiling is not quite as dramatic or accurate as depicted on the big screen or in best-selling books about the topic. More importantly, it is not a scientific approach to solving crimes. This paper explores the notion of criminal profiling as contextualized in the article; "Dangerous Minds: Criminal Profiling Made Easy" written by Malcolm Gladwell and aims to show how

This type of profiling involves criminal investigative analysis where the profiler begins by collecting and analyzing reports about the crime scene. (Henning, 2016) From the article, a company named Con Edison received several written threats attached to bombs that were found at various locations between the years of 1941 and 1956. When Psychiatrist Brussel viewed the case facts for investigation and scrutiny, his interpretation was that of the case led him to a detailed description of the bombers physical and life style characteristics down to the button of who the police should be looking for. His profile included details such as a white German male, unmarried, living with his mother, scar on his face, will be conservative and neat in appearance, and will live in White Plains. When the police finally found the Mad Bomber (George Meteski), he fit some of the extremely detailed profile, like being unmarried and wearing a double-breasted suit buttoned all the

The short answer is that Douglas was thought to be a highly successful and competent profiler within his circle due to the fact that he studied under another famed profiler named Howard Teten. Teten studied under Brussel. This connection alone gave Douglas respect within the profiling community. Douglas also helped establish the F.B.I.’s Behavioral Science Unit which leads others to believe he must be a successful profiler and that profiling is based on scientific measures. In fact, the typology he and a respected group of agents came up with to predict criminal behavior was not scientifically based at all. Much like to story told about Brussel, Douglas sensationalized his books with the cases and details that were correct and conveniently omitted incorrect details. The truth is, Douglas’ and other profiler’s predictions are wrong much more than they are right. (Henning, 2006) This pattern of professional profilers becoming authors and models for other sensationalized stories urged others to examine criminal profiling using scientific