The FBI’s Crime Scene Analysis involves six steps that ...
The FBI’s Crime Scene Analysis involves six steps that collectively make up their profiling process These steps include Profiling Inputs, Decision Process Models, Crime Assessment, The Criminal Profile, The Investigation and The Apprehension. A brief explanation of each step shall be discussed below.
Profiling Inputs:
This involves the collection and assessment of all of the materials relating to the specific case. This would typically involve any photographs taken of the crime scene and victim, a comprehensive background check of the victim, autopsy protocols, other forensic examinations relating to the crime, and any relevant information that is necessary to establish an accurate picture about what occurred before, during or after the crime. This stage serves as the basis for all others, and should incorrect or poor information be provided, the subsequent analysis will be affected.
Decision Process Models: This stage simply involves arranging all of the information gathered in the previous stage (Profiling Inputs) into a logical and coherent pattern. This might also include establishing how many victims were involved, for example, with the purpose of establishing whether the crime was the result of a serial offender.
Crime Assessment:
This stage would typically involve the reconstruction of the sequence of events and the specific behaviours of both the victim and perpetrator. This will aid the analyst in understanding the "role" each individual has in the crime and should assist in developing the subsequent profile of the criminal.
The Criminal Profile:
This is the process of providing a list of background, physical, and behavioural characteristics of the perpetrator. In the FBI model, this stage may also involve providing the requesting agency with directions on how to most appropriately interview the individual. This stage would also inform investigators how to identify and apprehend the perpetrator.
The Investigation:
Here, the actual profile is provided to requesting agencies and incorporated into their investigation. If no suspects are generated, or if new evidence comes to light, the profile is reassessed.
The Apprehension:
It is stated that the purpose of this stage is to cross check the profile produced with the characteristics of the offender once they are apprehended. This would occasionally be extremely difficult as the offender may never be apprehended, apprehended in another jurisdiction and not available for cross checking, arrested on some other charge, or simply cease criminal activity. As will be illustrated shortly, the rate of solved cases represents less than 50% of cases profiled and so this stage may never be tested.
The primary foundation of the FBI’s system lies within the organised and disorganised offender dichotomy. The table below illustrates the differences between the organised and disorganised offender [Reference 4].
|Organised Offender |Disorganised Offender |
|Average to above average |Below average intelligence |
|intelligence | |
|Socially competent |Socially inadequate |
|Skilled work preferred |Unskilled work |
|Sexually competent |Sexually incompetent |
|High birth order status |Low birth order status |
|Father’s work stable |Father’s work unstable |
|Inconsistent childhood discipline |Harsh discipline as a child |
|Controlled mood during crime |Anxious mood during crime |
|Use of alcohol with crime |Minimal use of alcohol |
|Precipitating situational stress |Minimal situational stress |
|Living with partner |Living alone |
|Mobility with car in good |Lives/works near the crime scene |
|condition | |
|Follows crime in news media |Minimal interest in news media |
|May change jobs or leave town |Significant behaviour change (e.g.|
| |drug or alcohol use) |
Other individuals are highly critical of the FBI’s methods also. It is argued that federal agencies have little experience in actually investigating murder cases, and that it would be better for local agencies to train their own officers in the intricacies of such investigations [Reference 10]. It is further stated that there are a number of conditions by which an organised offender may leave a disorganised crime scene, including (but not limited to) offenders who are acting out of retaliation, domestic violence related offenders, interrupted offences, and offences involving controlled substances (drugs etc.,) [Reference 6]. This would lead the analyst to incorrectly provide the characteristics of one group of offenders as the profile, when the perpetrator actually possesses the characteristics of the other group.
Despite these criticisms, the FBI’s method remains one of the most widely taught methods in the world today. It is common practice for agents from various police forces around the world to travel overseas and take part in the Bureau’s Fellowship Program, where they are taught this profiling method, amongst other training in areas such as criminal investigation.
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