A Report On Offender Profiling Psychology Essay

A Report On Offender Profiling Psychology Essay This definition is controversial as it has clear connotations of ‘informed guesswork’ that has angered those who advocate the view that offender profiling is a scientific and theoretically-informed technique. This disparity of views as to the validity of offender profiling is not limited to the academic and professional world. Unsuccessful attempts at profiling have attracted a high level of media attention and this has combined with the less-then-scientific approach of fictional profilers to create a fair degree of scepticism amongst the public regarding the validity of offender profiling. This essay will explore the psychological basis of offender profiling with a view to establishing whether or not it can be considered a valid psychological technique with an important role to play in criminal investigation. Although offender profiling is viewed as a relatively recent technique, gaining prominence in the 1980s and 1990s, the practices that underpin profiling are of fa r greater longevity. The research conducted by criminal anthropologists in the 1800s that sought to measure and record physical features of offenders in order to gain insight into the characteristics of the criminal personality provide the roots of offender profiling. This endeavour, commonly associated with Lombroso, was based upon the premise that criminal have distinctive characteristics that enable them to be differentiated from the non-criminal population (Garland, 1997). Lombroso’s work in the identification and classification of criminal ‘types’ was based on notions of biological determinism; certain individuals were naturally possessed of traits which predisposed them towards criminality. Not only did Lombroso believe that people were predestined either towards offending or law-abiding behaviour, he believed that criminals could be physically distinguished from each other according to the type of crime which they were biologically determined to commit. Th is early work into the classification of offenders seems far removed from the techniques deployed in modern offender profiling. However, Lombroso’s basic theoretical premise that criminal behaviour could be predicted from studying the characteristics of individuals to determine whether they were predisposed to criminality and, if so, what type of offending behaviour they would display was instrumental in the evolution of numerous alternative theoretical perspectives aimed at predicting criminal behaviour. Subsequent studies moved beyond the categorisation of offenders on the basis of physical characteristics to taken into account social and psychological factors. One of the major influences on the progression was the work of Sir Francis Galton who studied heredity and human behaviour as a basis for the prediction of criminal behaviour. His conclusions concerning the existence of inheritable criminal tendencies were coupled with a realisation that a tendency towards criminalit y was the result of the accumulation of specific character traits that were not necessarily criminally-orientated. Galton’s findings were particularly influential as they acknowledged the difficulty of isolating inherent characteristics without taking into account social and situational factors. In other words, although Galton was convinced that criminality was the result of inheritable personality traits, he recognised that these traits did not exist in isolation of the environment inhabited by the offender. This expansion of factors that were viewed as contributing to criminal behaviour led inexorably to a focus on the mind of the offender. Initially, psychological theories of offending tended to be reminiscent of the predestined actor of biological determinism in that they believed that criminal traits arose from factors outside the control of the offender and which had an indelible influence on their behaviour. Psychodynamic and behavioural learning theorists evolved expl anations for criminality that adhered to the central notion of psychological positivism that certain core patterns of behaviour and reasoning remain consistent within offenders irrespective of their social experiences and operational environment.