Is criminal profiling sufficiently developed to be helpful in investigations or to be accepted in courts?

[Name of the course]

[Name of the module]

Is criminal profiling sufficiently developed to be helpful in investigations or to be accepted in courts?

Introduction

It is an art to study a criminal's mind. In today's world, this art is performed by specialist in the field of investigation. Criminal profiling is the process of studying a psychosomatic profile of a victim or an offender, studying the crime scene. The specialists relating to the task are forensic psychologist or individuals who have mastered the art of studying the criminal minds. These efforts or profiles can then be helped to support the police departments in apprehending the criminal.

A Crime scene asks a lot from the authorities or investigators, most importantly, the whole profile of the offender who has committed the crime and the reason behind it. A sketch of an offender is the first need that has to be developed which is the real profiling of the criminal. Criminal profiling is usually helpful to forensic psychologists investigating cases of homicides, catching psychopaths, serial killers, arsonists, and rapists.

The psychology behind developing criminal profiling is to study the crime scene portraying the picture of the crime and helping to label the architect of the crime as organized, disorganized, or mixed. The description of organized criminal is that the crime was pre planned, and the offender is keeping past, present and future track of the target. A disorganized offender is the one who has spontaneous reaction to the crime offered. The most difficult category to judge and profile is of the mixed offender, the one who carries both organized and disorganized characteristics combined together. Criminal profiling is not only used to identify potential offenders but also used to characterize patterns of future offenders (Kocsis, Hayes, Irwin, 2002). Criminal profiling further involves linking two or more cases and victims, listing by their backgrounds, behavioral and physical characteristics involving psychological concepts and techniques. The aspects of criminal profiling are based on five aspects of interaction done with the offender and the victim. The first aspect is that the criminal will have the same behavior every time and deals same way in daily life, commonly known as interpersonal coherence. The second behavior is the similarity and significance of time and place representing the criminal's mind and schedule. Next aspect of criminal profiling represents the characteristics that the criminal executed. Further, the fourth profiling stage aspect is to identify the criminal career record and analyze whether the offender has committed certain crime before. Indicating the last forensic aspect, which is to identifying the criminal mind, whether the criminal carried knowledge and information of police evidence collecting procedures and techniques?

The criteria of criminal profiling are to analyze the characteristics of the offender's behavior and personality in terms of physical build, race, sex, status and habits, criminal history, skill level, vehicle used and many other things which are related to the criminal and the crime for apprehending the criminal ...