Psychological Profiling Research

The issue focused on a technique that law enforcement officers call psychological profiling. Psychological profiling is defined as an analytic technique used to analyze criminal behaviors in order to identify an offenders characteristic (Kocsis, Hayes & Irwin, 2002). However, profiling has been used periodically in police investigating practices over the last year. Therefore, the use of profiling reoccurrence missed the support of empirical research validity. As a result, Kocsis et al (2004) were the first to consider examining the empirical skills related to criminal profile accuracy. Their study focused on the evidence and information collected based on real life crimes. First, they began to compare criminal profiles to perpetrator of homicide;

First, they examined a group of senior detectives who had experience in criminal investigations. Second, they recruited a group of detectives who specialized in homicide investigations. Third, they contrast the general experienced police officers to investigative officers. As a result, they had a sample of trainee detectives who possessed experience in police basic duties, but only experienced criminal investigated skills. Finally, the sample of police recruits were used to represent individuals who had a professional interest in criminal behavior. Hence, this group was also used to examine the validity of individuals who have an desire to be police officers. However, they found that the police were not as accurate depicting the offenders than others. However, the respondents were not given any additional information about the case either. After examining the study, they found that with little evidence it could not support the investigative hypothesis which stated that investigative experience is a skill needed to become an psychological profiler. It has been suggested that, on must develop the skills to remain effective for future research.