Are Criminal Profiles Woo?

[starri]

I apologize if I've started this thread in the wrong forum, but I honestly couldn't think of anywhere else to put it.

Anyway, I rather shamefully admit that True Crime books are a bit of a vice of mine (In my own meager defense, I generally prefer ones with slightly more literary merit, like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and The Devil in the White City over the more tawdry, gore-soaked ones). But of late, I've been reading some of Ann Rule's writing, and while she's not a bad writer, as I've been getting further into her book about the Green River Killer (Green River, Running Red), there have been a few things that have bugged me.

In the early days of the Green River investigation, she mentions FBI Special Agent John Douglas of the Behavioral Sciences department writing a profile on the killer.

I became aware of Agent Douglas as he was a technical consultant for The Silence of the Lambs, and even appeared on the DVD commentary for the film's first DVD edition, where he used his time, rather than speaking on his work on the film or the way he does his job, instead to deliver a polemic on why everyone should support capital punishment. That's a can of worms that I don't want to open, but let's just say that didn't exactly endear Agent Douglas to me.

In any case, around 1985, Agent Douglas' profile was written and then he became gravely ill, and was not working on the Green River Task Force for a number of years. When he finally did return to duty, he revised his profile, and though I of course know that Gary Ridgway was eventually caught, I still haven't finished the book to know what went on in the investigation that eventually brought him to justice.

But the thing is, large swaths of Agent Douglas' original profile were dead wrong, and while his revised one was more accurate, the entire thing smacks of just glorified cold reading, given legitimacy with a badge. This is a man who is generally considered to have invented the field, and even though Rule is clearly impressed by him (and I imagine they worked together on the VICAP task force), by her own admission he was way off the mark.

Am I wrong? Are there cases where these sorts of profiles have actually lead to criminals being caught?

 

[bluesjnr]

EDIT - Reply removed due to my hissy fit!

 

[starri]

That's not really specifically that to which I am referring. What you're talking about, with any considerations of political correctness stripped away, is pattern recognition.

When I talk about criminal profiling, it's more on the vein of "The killer is a 35-50-year-old Caucasian male. He holds a job with a certain amount of technical precision involved. He likely drives a small, well-maintained pick-up truck," etc.

 

[bluesjnr]

That's not really specifically that to which I am referring. What you're talking about, with any considerations of political correctness stripped away, is pattern recognition.

When I talk about criminal profiling, it's more on the vein of "The killer is a 35-50-year-old Caucasian male. He holds a job with a certain amount of technical precision involved. He likely drives a small, well-maintained pick-up truck," etc.

In that case you should have been more specific instead of expecting everybody to be familiar with the people and cases you quote.That way it stops drive by idiots like myself trying to advance your thread only to be told - in effect. "Shut up, you're off topic"

I felt that the examples I gave very much went towards profiling and had nothing to do with pattern recognition.

 

[starri]

Fair enough. Maybe it's just (again to my shame) because of my interest in the topic that I assume that "criminal profiling" has a certain connotation to everyone.

I apologize for any confusion.

 

[Wolrab]

Here is a thread from just over a year ago:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=158683&highlight=criminal+profiling

 

[starri]

Cool! Thanks!

That'll teach me not to search.

 

[Marduk]

Andrei Chikatilo was caught as the direct resullt of criminal profiling,
just took them a while is all

 

[Loss Leader]

Part of the problem with the Green River killer, as I remember, was his name. Once they named him, police stopped looking for crimes anywhere but in the Green River area.

My understanding is that criminal profiling, while sometimes helpful, is still so in its infancy that it is not yet particularly useful. With some long years of research and data gathering by trained psychologists and criminologists (not just cops learning on the job), it may yet become as helpful as the TV makes it seem.

 

[drapier]

Malcolm Gladwell published a critical piece on profiling in the New Yorker back in 2007. He features discussion of Douglas.

 

[starri]

That Gladwell piece was fascinating, and unfortunately seemed to be almost directly in line with what I'd been thinking about the whole process.

 

[Sledge]

I hope this quote from the article Wolrab linked to isn't too long to violate the MA, because it really is excellent.

They had been at it for almost six hours. The best minds in the F.B.I. had given the Wichita detectives a blueprint for their investigation. Look for an American male with a possible connection to the military. His I.Q. will be above 105. He will like to masturbate, and will be aloof and selfish in bed. He will drive a decent car. He will be a “now” person. He won’t be comfortable with women. But he may have women friends. He will be a lone wolf. But he will be able to function in social settings. He won’t be unmemorable. But he will be unknowable. He will be either never married, divorced, or married, and if he was or is married his wife will be younger or older. He may or may not live in a rental, and might be lower class, upper lower class, lower middle class or middle class. And he will be crazy like a fox, as opposed to being mental. If you’re keeping score, that’s a Jacques Statement, two Barnum Statements, four Rainbow Ruses, a Good Chance Guess, two predictions that aren’t really predictions because they could never be verified—and nothing even close to the salient fact that BTK was a pillar of his community, the president of his church and the married father of two.

Do these people honestly think they're providing useful information, or are they aware of how useless their predictions really are?

 

[starri]

Do these people honestly think they're providing useful information, or are they aware of how useless their predictions really are?

Hollywood certainly seems to think they're useful.

I've never read anything by Douglas (although my opinion, as I stated, wasn't all that high even before I got into thinking critically about his profession) and I'm only vaguely familiar with Robert Ressler. I read something that was very uncomplimentary of him a few years ago, but try as I might, I can't think of where.

 

[blutoski]

We had a speaker at Vancouver SkeptiCamp last month who was an academic researcher who specialised in criminal profiling.

Her summary was that:

• in principle, it should work
• she wanted to clarify that profiling is very detailed - 'black male' is not an example of acual scientific profiling. profilers are looking at stuff like MMPI personality constellations. this is also a weakness - this information may not be available to build a list of suspects who match the focussed profile
• the profession is very proprietary - methods and case examples are not disclosed. this means so independent validation has never been done
• profilers will probably never allow independent validation, as their careers are at stake

She points out that some types of 'independent validation' are among people who were trained together and use the same methods. She doesn't feel this is a genuine approach to independent review.

 

[Beerina]

They have to keep in mind it's (or should be) based on statistics of analyzed past, found criminals.

Because of this, it doesn't always predict correctly (the DC-area shooter was a black guy and a black kid, not a single, angry white guy), or could pick out someone that fits the bill perfectly (the Olympic bomber) who was actually innocent.

 

[brenn]

Am I wrong? Are there cases where these sorts of profiles have actually lead to criminals being caught?

Plenty, from murders all the way down to DUI and street drug dealers.
Nothing woo about the profile, it just tells the police "the people most likely involved in crime X have these traits...." Much of it is statistical and, in the case of individuals crimes like murder investigations, it also includes a lot of actual evidence from the particular crime. It isn't particularly mysterious and calling it "psychological profiling" as many do, is almost as innacurate as calling it "racial profiling" when applied to more minor crime detection.

I felt that the examples I gave very much went towards profiling and had nothing to do with pattern recognition.

Profiling IS pattern recognition and always has been. As I mentioned above, there are intentionally spread myths about everything from "psychological profiling" to "racial profiling" that have been used to benefit criminals, but that facts is, profiling just means identifying the characteristics of people who commit various crimes. Skeptics should be as willing to investigate a myth like "racial profiling" as "bigfoot" (asssuming you are a skeptic). Note; I am largely guessing the specifics of your post, since it was edited.

As many have said above, profiling isn't perfect, but it works. Every serial killer isn't a 30-something white male, but most are. All robbers and murderers (murder in general) aren't black, but most are. (FBI Uniform Crime Report, 2009). Some bank robbers are female, but iof I'm trying to catch bank robbers, l0oking at women and men equally isn't helpful. If an officer's job is highway drug interdiction, it helps to know what drug runners look like (which is where the "other than serial killers" type of profiling becamse known, back in the 80's).

All the profile is, is taking those race, age, sex, etc., statistics and putting them together to predict.

 

[TraneWreck]

I hope this quote from the article Wolrab linked to isn't too long to violate the MA, because it really is excellent.

Do these people honestly think they're providing useful information, or are they aware of how useless their predictions really are?

I watched an excellent presentation by the lead detectives in the BTK investigaton. They were VERY anti-profiling, and read about 7 different profiles created by FBI and CIA "experts." They were all WILDLY wrong.

If profiling has any use, it's to help understand what happened after the fact. It has almost no investigative value, and, likely generates serious problems.

I also had the occassion to get into a bit of an argument with John Douglas. A professor in my mother's department is quite well known in the criminology department and brings in many interesting speakers (that's how I saw the BTK presentation as well). Douglas regularly visits the university to give presentations.

It was an interesting talk, and his insight from interviewing all of these monsters is interesting, but I took exception to his investigative claims. He worked on the Jonbenet Ramsey case, and made the following argument (all quotes paraphrased from memory):

"There were two bits of evidence that made me conclude that Jonbenet was murdered by her parents. The first was that the ransom letter requested a very specific amount of money, $118,000. Mr. Ramsey had just received a bonus check in that amount."

He explained some psychological phenomenon about how people in times of stress will write down numbers they've recently seen or heard. THus, the parents, having just seen a check for that amount, put that number in the letter.

"The ONLY people who would know about that were the parents. Second, the ransom note was written with a pen that came from the Ramsey house and was found in the mother's room."

He then said something like, "If my 25 years of experience tell me anything, it's that the mother and father were guilty."

When question time arrived I asked something like this:

"I attended a law school that devoted a great deal of time to applying DNA evidence to death penalty cases. Hundreds of people have been removed from death row because of that and similar work over the last decade. What worries me about your approach is that by investing your personal credibility into one conclusion based on evidence that can be interpreted a number of ways, you're already setting your mind against countless explanations.

"For example, maybe someone in the mailroom saw Ramsey's bonus check, went out to the bar that night and told his buddies, 'guess how much money that a-hole Ramsey got for his bonus?' Instead of being a strange number to ask for, it becomes a very reasonable number to request because that person knows the Ramsey's can obtain the sum. And as for the pen, if someone snuck in the house and abducted the child, it hardly seems like a stretch to think they could have found a pen."

He gave kind of a canned answer where he reiterated his claim based on personal experience, and I didn't want to argue since I wasn't actually in the class, but I have always been thoroughly underwhelmed by profiling and find its use in investigations to be dangerous.

This is a similar situation (another New Yorker piece that NEEDS to be read):
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann

This time an "arson-whisperer" uses non-scientific techniques that he justifies with personal credibility and the result is the execution of an innocent man.

 

[TraneWreck]

Malcolm Gladwell published a critical piece on profiling in the New Yorker back in 2007. He features discussion of Douglas.

Thanks for posting that. It was an interesting read.

This summed up one of my major issues with profiling--that because it's purpose is to limit the population that needs to be investigated, it draws far more specific conclusions than the evidence allows.

“The fact is that different offenders can exhibit the same behaviors for completely different reasons,” Brent Turvey, a forensic scientist who has been highly critical of the F.B.I.’s approach, says. “You’ve got a rapist who attacks a woman in the park and pulls her shirt up over her face. Why? What does that mean? There are ten different things it could mean. It could mean he doesn’t want to see her. It could mean he doesn’t want her to see him. It could mean he wants to see her breasts, he wants to imagine someone else, he wants to incapacitate her arms—all of those are possibilities. You can’t just look at one behavior in isolation.”

And boy, this sums up about 90% of psychic woo, profiling, and other similar nonsense:

if you make a great number of predictions, the ones that were wrong will soon be forgotten, and the ones that turn out to be true will make you famous. The Hedunit is not a triumph of forensic analysis. It’s a party trick.

 

[Doc Daneeka]

It was an interesting talk, and his insight from interviewing all of these monsters is interesting, but I took exception to his investigative claims. He worked on the Jonbenet Ramsey case, and made the following argument (all quotes paraphrased from memory):

"There were two bits of evidence that made me conclude that Jonbenet was murdered by her parents. The first was that the ransom letter requested a very specific amount of money, $118,000. Mr. Ramsey had just received a bonus check in that amount."

He explained some psychological phenomenon about how people in times of stress will write down numbers they've recently seen or heard. THus, the parents, having just seen a check for that amount, put that number in the letter.

"The ONLY people who would know about that were the parents. Second, the ransom note was written with a pen that came from the Ramsey house and was found in the mother's room."

He then said something like, "If my 25 years of experience tell me anything, it's that the mother and father were guilty."

Just curious, but when was this, approximately? I've only ever heard him say (repeatedly) that he believes the Ramseys are innocent. Has he changed his mind?

 

[Loss Leader]

Just curious, but when was this, approximately? I've only ever heard him say (repeatedly) that he believes the Ramseys are innocent. Has he changed his mind?

If there is one thing that I believe entirely on faith and against the weight of authority and evidence, it is that these people helped kill their daughter.