Thesis on "Offender Profile"

Thesis 17 pages (4763 words) Sources: 10 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Offender Profiling: Essential and Effective or Intrusive

This work will serve as an in-depth view of offender profiling, a technique often used by law enforcement and other security professionals to develop ideas and potential leads about the who, what, when and where of crime. Offender profiling, and particularly what is termed racial profiling has come under extreme fire from many areas of the community, leveling against law enforcement that they apply profiling in a manner that is intrusive and violates personal rights and yet offender profiling is an essential aspect of law enforcement for both prevention of and investigation of crime. This work will discuss both the informal aspects of offender profiling as well as the training aspects of offender profiling and discuss ways in which it is essential to investigative and prevention work in the face of crime and community protection from it.

Offender Profiling: Essential and Effective or Intrusive

Criminal profiling, or offender profiling is indicative of a "new science" in criminology and is also a topic that is highly debated and controversial for its implications associated with individual rights in a free society. Offender profiles are frequently applied as a necessary tool in the development of case work, for both finding and eliciting information from suspects of crime or even potential crime suspects, such as in the case of national security and terrorism. Crime profiles are developed in a general manner and offered to or developed by officers and prosecutors to help them think like a criminal, so as to be better able to identify and/or convict offenders in the community. Criminal profiles are considered highly useful by law enforcement for the prevention of crime or apprehension of those who are suspected of crime. On the flip side of this debate many individuals and especially those who are falsely accused of crime, or detained unnecessarily find offender profiling an intrusive and wholly un-American process that leads to stereotyping and therefore continued disparities in apprehension and conviction of crime, but especially racial disparity. "Racial profiling is currently a volatile topic in cities." (Glenn et al., 2003, p. 213)

In several communities racial profiling has come under extreme public and political debate and in the 21st century many police agencies have taken steps to bring the community together with the police departments to discuss the issue and make attempts to come to terms with the issue of profiling. In the case of Seattle WA a community forum was held and an open discussion was leveled in the community to build a case for police discretion as the object of such actions, that could easily be seen by many as racial profiling.

The department went beyond the norm for opening communication with the community. Police representatives tolerated sometimes very harsh criticism and were in return provided the opportunity to present their perspectives, including a belief that officers needed to be allowed to exercise discretion (versus discrimination) in their contacts with the public. 19 the department followed up this initiative with television public service announcements regarding the discussion that outlined police plans to address community concerns. (Glenn et al., 2003, p. 214)

Several other communities have and are holding similar discussions to attempt to create a better understanding of how offender profiling works and why it is an essential aspect of police work. Formal police training often includes important issues of profiling that go beyond the traditional "seat of the pants" approach that was utilized in the past, i.e. when officers were left on their own to utilize their own view of the community where they serve to help make discretionary decisions about who to stop, who to question and why, based upon their own understanding of the community and its overall offender profile.

Value of Offender Profiling

The value of offender profiling is unquestionable, as the development of an idea regarding the who, what and why aspects of criminal behavior is essential to allowing police officers in the field to seek out and detain those who are "most" likely to be involved in criminal activities that have occurred. Offender profiling is especially important in crimes that leave little evidence and no witnesses but are particularly heinous and damaging to the community. Such as murder, serial stranger attacks like sex crimes or even violent or sex crimes that involve individuals known to the victim. Property violations also have a particular offender profile, and police officers are trained to seek out clues from the physical evidence that help create an idea of who, when and why the property crime occurred. There are a set of sort of blanket offender profiles that can be utilized and added to by officers investigating crime that help them brainstorm possible leads to criminals. For example in situations of murder it is often found that the murder is known to the victim and is often their husband, wife or partner. Different crime modus operandi or MO, also elicit different offender profiles. For example when a school is vandalized detectives often seek out students of the school or former students of the school that have motive for what would seem a senseless crime to most people. Another example being that a majority of murder cases involve offenders well-known to the victim and this is the hopefully short list of people detectives seek to interview and detain and in some cases obtain alibis from, checking off suspects as they go. The detectives also look at the crime itself, looking for not only physical evidence that would identify a suspect but for how the actual crime was committed, was their obvious malice seen in the manner in which the death or assault occurred, i.e. A crime of passion, or was the crime a crime of opportunity, such as when valuables were taken and the individual was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Offender profiling is used in all investigations to some degree or another.

When investigating a crime or developing answers to ongoing patterns, series, or trends, law enforcement personnel often rely upon numerous databases and records management systems. These are used to gain information and insight to prior incidents with similar signatures or modus operandi. Police reports, field interview cards, property pawn transactions, public records, and traffic citations are some common sources of information on known criminals. Ordinary street criminals often have lengthy arrest histories and numerous encounters with law enforcement officers documented on their criminal records. Criminals do not seek to have run-ins with the law, but they do not shy away from them. (Ronczkowski, 2004, p. 72)

Criminal profiles serve as a starting place for the development of answers to cases where the evidence does not initially create a positive identification of the offender. They guide enforcement, prevention, apprehension and even successful prosecution of criminals. They are one of the basic starting points for how officers rebuild events that have occurred after they have occurred, and sometimes even long after they have occurred.

The Special Case of Terrorism

One area of specific concern with regard to public interest in racial or offender profiling are crimes where the commission of them seems random (i.e. not directed at individuals but at institutions), is well planned and the identity of the assailants are concealed. Terrorism is this type of crime, as many offenders have limited or no involvement with law enforcement prior to their first alarming offence and therefore the only real way to fight such acts is through deterrence, which sometimes results in detention of people simply based on observed actions and/or words, rather than long lists of intelligence building systems, such as prior arrest records or petty crime leading to the events.

Terrorists, on the other hand, go to great extremes to avoid detection. As noted in the profiles of the September 11, 2001 hijackers, other than a traffic infraction they had little if any contact with the law enforcement community. Therefore, gathering information on these individuals requires analysts to think outside the box and to identify nontraditional sources of information. One example of these sources would be purchases that perhaps an ordinary person would not make, especially if in bulk. Other sources would be the Internet, published material, court records, handouts, radio (including citizen band and ham radios), and self-published books such as the Turner Diaries and Hunter by Andrew MacDonald. (Ronczkowski, 2004, p. 72)

Terrorism, and the prevention of it has challenged the law enforcement communities in many extreme ways and has created a need for a whole new varied set of standards and techniques, which often utilizes observations of actions, through record keeping and simple surveillance, based on intelligence gathering as well as simple observation in areas where terrorism might occur, such as airports, cargo hold areas, mass transit and so forth. Civil rights advocates argue that watching people, go about their daily lives, often no matter how suspicious their behavior is a violation of their rights as is their detention without due cause, yet these things occur and can often be… READ MORE

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