Criminal Psychology and Forensic Technology

350 Pages·2006·5.66 MB·English

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
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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 investi-
gative 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 psy-
chology 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 dem-
onstrated 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 con-
clusions 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. To establish the probability of a causal connection
between two events, controls must first be established to rule out other factors
such as chance or some unknown causal factor (Riere, 1998). Anecdotes from
law enforcement officers who use this approach and swear by it do not
establish the probability of causal connection. Rather, a controlled study,
comparing success rates with true detectors and fake ones, is the only way to
establish the probability connection between two events.
© 2001 CRC Press LLC
From the previous discussion of the frailties of human thinking, we
should be aware that offender profiles and many conclusions about what may
have taken place during the commission of a crime can be distorted by easily
recalled events, selective perception, and expectations that bias observations
and conclusions. This process is called “illusory correlation,” where unrelated
variables, events, crime scene actions, etc. are believed to be correlated, when
in fact no associations exist. Hence, the purpose of this book is to introduce
alternative approaches that use systematic and scientific processes which aid
in reducing illusory correlations and hindsight bias to improve the way crimes
are investigated and offender profiles are generated, as well as to test their
accuracy and applicability to criminal investigations.
Criminal Psychology and Forensic Technology is unique because it presents
an array of topics fusing aspects of criminal psychology with forensic science
methods in a collaborative effort to improve the way profiles are derived.
Alternative approaches to crime solving and new research that contributes to
the science of profiling are described. The format is simple and straightfor-
ward, and the information is designed for the generalist who may be just
beginning a career as a law enforcement officer, or the student enrolling for
the first time in a criminal justice or police–related degree program. Criminal
Psychology and Forensic Technology is also geared to the professional with
years of training and experience. The chapters are succinctly written and
provide thorough examinations of their relevant fields. The book is perfect
for students preparing essays or class reports on various crime detection
procedures or criminal profiling techniques, and for professionals wishing to
expand their knowledge of alternative investigative methods for application
to real crime situations. Whatever the reasons for choosing this book, the
reader will be enlightened and his knowledge about alternative investigative
tools for solving crimes, scientific methods for reducing biases in investigative
decision making, and ethical issues that surround the application of these
investigative procedures will be greatly enhanced.
Grover Maurice Godwin, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor of Justice
University of Alaska–Anchorage
Anchorage, Alaska – 2000
© 2001 CRC Press LLC
Acknowledgments
I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to
Dr. Robert Langworthy, Director of the Justice Center at the University of
Alaska-Anchorage, for his continued support and for providing me the
opportunity to teach and pursue new directions in crime related research.
I also would like to thank the entire staff at the Justice Center for helping me
to complete this book. My appreciation also goes to the contributing authors,
without whom I would never have been able to complete this publication.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to all those at CRC Press who
helped make my second book possible, and especially to my editor, Becky
McEldowney. On a personal note, thanks to Clifford Curry and Bill Lyerly
for keeping the East Coast sound alive.
© 2001 CRC Press LLC