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Profile Applications
One area in which criminal profiling (personality assessment) has been useful is in hostage negotiation.2 Law enforcement officers need to learn as much as possible about the hostage taker in order to protect the lives of the hostages. They must be able to assess the subject in terms of his probable course of action and his reactions to various stimuli. In such cases, police obtain information about the offender through verbal contact with the hostage taker and possibly through access to his family and associates.
Criminal profiling techniques have also been used in identifying anonymous letter writers 3 and persons who make written or spoken threats of violence.4 In cases of the latter, psycholinguistic techniques have been used to compose a "threat dictionary," whereby every word in a message is assigned, by computer, to a specific category. Words as they are used in the message are then compared to those words as they are used in ordinary speech or writings, and the vocabulary usage of a particular author or speaker may yield "signature" words unique to that individual. In this way, police may not only be able to determine that several letters were written by the same individual but also learn about the background and psychology of the offender.
Rapists and arsonists also lend themselves to criminal profiling techniques. Through careful interview of the rape victim about the rapist's behavior, law enforcement personnel may be able to build a profile of the offender. 5 The theory behind this approach is that behavior (sexual, physical, verbal) reflects personality, and by examining the behavior of the rapist during the assault, the investigator may be able to determine what type of person is responsible for the offense. Common characteristics of arsonists have been derived from an analysis of the Uniform Crime Reports. 6 Knowledge of the arsonist's psychodynamics can aid the investigator in identifying possible suspects, predicting location of subsequent arsons, and developing techniques and strategies for interviewing suspects.
Criminal profiling has been useful in investigating sexual homicides because many of these crimes appear motiveless and thus offer few obvious clues about the killer's identity. In murders that result from jealousy or a family quarrel, or take place during commission of a felony, the readily identifiable motive generally provides vital information about the identity of the killer. Because many sexual homicides fail to provide this information, investigators must look to methods that supplement conventional investigative techniques to identify the perpetrator.
Case In Point
Criminal profiling uses the behavioral characteristics of the of fender as its basis. Sexual homicides, for example, yield much information about the mind and motivation of the killer. A new dimension is provided to the investigator via the profiling technique, particularly in cases where the underlying motivation for the crime may be suddenly hidden from even the more-
