Criminal Profiling Basics: TV Drama vs. Real Life
If you are a big fan of the TV show Criminal minds, I would know that the characters are experts in “shaping” the suspicious, or unknown subject, who is suspected of a crime.
Criminal profiles it is a high-profile research method. People are shocked and watch TV news about him, like Test bodies. There are television detective dramas like CSI gold Criminal minds built around it. Crime profiling uses evidence from the crime scene along with other psychological information to indicate the type of person most likely to have committed the criminal act under investigation.
What’s the difference between TV drama and real-life criminal profiling?
Television drama profiles
As described in the media, film and television, detectives are cops working on hunches, while “profilers” are cops whose hunches are elevated to a higher echelon by a conglomerate of geeky science and psychic savvy. They show up at the crime scene, put on rubber gloves, look at pieces of evidence, inspect the entire scene, make faces, and then say: “The perpetrator is a black guy, in his 30s, with black hair, brown eyes, And he eats pizza regularly. Let’s catch this guy. “
Many times on television, the mystery of “who did it” is solved about ten minutes before the end of the show, as seen in CSI
Real life profiles
In contrast to profiling television dramas, real-life criminal profiling involves painstaking detective work. It always begins with an analysis of the physical evidence found at individual crime scenes. By using deductive reasoning, the reasoning involved in using specific physical facts to arrive at generalizations, the criminal profiler begins to develop the trends and typologies that are characteristic of different types of perpetrators.
It is only after careful study of many crime scenes that the veteran criminal profiler can confidently try to piece together the behavior of the offender in a particular scene. From this reconstruction, profilers can reach conclusions about the motive for the crime.
No reputable criminal profiler still believes in the old definition of a method of operation (MO) that a particular type of criminal act is always and inevitably the result of the same motive. On the other hand, it can be assumed that various motives may result in a particular type of behavior. Suppose a crime scene investigator comes across a blindfolded body. This could indicate that the offender may have known the victim and did not want to be identified.
Often times, criminal profiling can result in narrowing down a large list of suspects. Although this is not an exact science, it is an invaluable tool because it allows law enforcement agencies to more effectively target their limited resources. For example, if the offender is more likely to possess traits A, B, and C, profilers do not have to search for perpetrators who possess traits outside of these qualities.
Next time you look CSI gold Criminal mindsYou will better understand what real-life crime profiling is all about versus TV drama profiling.