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In the old days of criminal profiling, a
psychologist would study the idiosyncrasies of a crime scene with the expert-eye
of an art collector inspecting a painting of unknown provenance. They'd draw on
their clinical and forensic knowledge to help the police narrow their search,
describing to them the kind of person who would likely commit a crime in this
way. It wasn't particularly scientific and there were some high profile
blunders, such as the misguided
entrapment of Colin Stagg during the hunt for the killer of Rachel
Nickell.

By contrast, contemporary criminal profiling is more
data-driven. More about number crunching and less about the judgment of a single
expert. Thousands of criminal records are pored over to look for factual
correlations that could usefully inform investigations. It's been shown for
example, that two
burglaries closer together geographically, or closer together in time, are more
likely to have been committed by the same person.

This empirical
approach is also being brought to bear on more psychological aspects of crime
scenes. In a new study, Carrie Trojan and Gabrielle
Salfati studied a set of criminal records to see if there were links between
the crime scene behaviour of murderers and the general theme of their offending
history. The majority of murderers in the USA, where this research was
conducted, have an existing criminal record, so if such a link could be
established it could help guide future murder hunts.

The researchers'
prediction was that murder scenes betraying signs of uncontrolled violence and
impulsivity, which they labelled as 'hostile', will be more likely to have been
perpetrated by a person with a record of committing crimes bearing that same
hall-mark, such as assault, domestic violence and vandalism. By contrast, they
predicted that murder scenes betraying signs of calculation and an ulterior
motive, which they labelled 'cognitive', such as hiding the body, and involving
acts of a sexual nature or robbery, will be more likely to have been committed
by someone with a criminal record involving more considered, 'instrumental'
crimes, such as theft or evasion of arrest.

Trojan and Salfati obtained
records from the Cincinnati Police Department of 122 murders committed by
someone who'd only ever killed once (between 1997 and 2006), and records of nine
serial killers from across the USA. The latter had killed between three and six
people each, but only ever one person at a time. The researchers first
established that it was possible to classify the majority of murder scenes as
either hostile or cognitive based on a scene having twice as many signs of one
theme, in proportionate terms, than the other. On this basis, 87 per cent of the
murder scenes were considered to have a dominant theme.

Next, the
researchers showed that the vast majority (95 per cent) of murders by a
one-victim killer were associated with hostile murder scenes. This chimes with
the fact that nearly half of all murders in the USA occur during arguments. In
contrast, the murder scenes left by serial killers were approximately half the
time (51 per cent) hostile themed, and half the time (49 per cent) cognitive
themed.

Turning to the key question of whether murder scene behaviour
echoes the murderer's criminal history, the results unfortunately became far
messier. For murderers with one victim, the most common pattern (26 per cent)
was for a hostile crime scene to be left by a person with a history of more
instrumental crimes. In other words, there was most often actually a mismatch
between murder scene behaviour and offending history. For 24 per cent of
single-victim murderers, their was a hostile/hostile match in the murder scene
and offending history. For the remainder, the classifications were mixed or
unidentifiable.

What about the serial killers? Although the largest
category (33 per cent) did show a murder scene/ offending history match - being
more cognitive and instrumental in each case - other patterns were also found,
with 22 per cent tending to leave a mixture of cognitive and hostile murder
scenes, but with an instrumental offending background, and another 22 per cent
leaving a mixture of murder scenes and having a mixed background of
offending.

'When linking criminal history to crime scene behaviour,
thematic consistency was not evident in most cases,' the researchers concluded.
'Essentially, the results show that most single-victim homicide crime scenes
display the same theme and that offenders are equally likely to have a pattern
of either violence or instrumentality in their criminal background and a decent
number have no pattern in their criminal history …' And here's the rub, Trojan
and Salfati added: 'It would be difficult to apply this information in
investigations.'

The study had its limitations. Not only was the number
of serial killers woefully small, but as the researchers themselves concede,
they didn't look at the time-line of murderers' past offences. This could have
revealed useful patterns, such as that it is a murderer's recent style of
offending that is linked to his or her murder scene behaviour, rather than his
or her overall career pattern of offending. 'However,' the researchers said,
'because this study was the first to directly focus on the link between criminal
history and crime scene actions, it provides an important first step for more
in-depth examinations.'
_________________________________

Trojan, C., and Salfati, C. (2011). Linking Criminal History to
Crime Scene Behavior in Single-Victim and Serial Homicide: Implications for
Offender Profiling Research. Homicide Studies,
15 (1), 3-31 DOI: 10.1177/1088767910397281

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Terrorists' personal constructs and their roles: A comparison of the three Islamic terrorists    David Canter, Sudhanshu Sarangi  and  Donna Youngs  FEB 2014 

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Terrorists' personal constructs and their roles: A comparison of the three Islamic terrorists    David Canter, Sudhanshu Sarangi  and  Donna Youngs  FEB 2014 

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Abstract

It is hypothesized that individuals who play different roles in terrorist organizations will have different psychological processes underlying their activities. An innovative examination of the personal construct systems of terrorists explored this. As part of a larger study, three individuals convicted of Islamic-related terrorist violence in India were interviewed using a semi-structured life narrative procedure enhanced by a Repertory Grid (Kelly, 1955/1991). One was a senior leader of a terrorist group, one a subordinate, the third a person who planted a bomb without full knowledge of the larger design he was part of. Principal component analyses of these grids informed by comments from the life narratives were used to elaborate each man's conceptual system and how it related to his commitment to violence. Important differences among the three individuals' in their construct systems were found. This demonstrated that the forms of Jihadi commitment is embedded in the individual's personal construct system. So, although these three case studies can only be taken as providing indicative results, they do point to aspects of construct systems that reveal the potential for disengagement, being most likely present in the lower echelons of terrorist organizations. Those who are unable to reconstrue themselves as having a non-terrorist future are unlikely to disengage. This is probably typical of those who lead these organizations. The results therefore contribute to the growing literature arguing for significant differences in terrorists' understanding of themselves and their roles and provide an original methodology for assessing a person's potential for deradicalization.

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Cluster Analysis Examination of Serial Killer Profiling Categories: A Bottom-Up Approach     Sandie Taylor  , Daniel Lambeth   JAN 2011 

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Cluster Analysis Examination of Serial Killer Profiling Categories: A Bottom-Up Approach     Sandie Taylor  , Daniel Lambeth   JAN 2011 

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Abstract

Two studies explored the validity of dichotomous classification of organised/disorganised serial killers and the four typologies (visionary, mission, hedonistic, and power/control) adopted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Tables documenting crime scene criteria were devised consisting of 50 typifying different crime scenes (Study 1) and 48 crime scenes (taken from the 50 crime scene criteria) with a further 10 motive-based crime scene criteria (Study 2). Adopting content analysis, crime scenes depicted for 40 (Study 1) and 40 (Study 2) serial killers using secondary sources of data were dichotomously coded for the presence or absence of the crime scene criteria. These data wereinputted for agglomerative hierarchical cluster using Ward's method as the clustering algorithm. Differences in the nature of clusters were found for male and female serial killers; however, there was no empirical support for the organised/disorganised classifications or the four typologies. The ‘bottom-up’ approach resulted in clusters from the different crime scene criteria that helped to understand how these criteria were associated within the serial killer cohort considered. It is concluded that the resulting clusters in both studies support the notion of there being an underlying organised element to most serial murder and that serial murders differ according to the nature of disorganised crime scene criteria present. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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An Exploratory Profiling Study of Online Auction Fraudsters -     2014    Vivien Chan, Kam-Pui Chow, 

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An Exploratory Profiling Study of Online Auction Fraudsters -     2014    Vivien Chan, Kam-Pui Chow, 

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Abstract

Online auctions are one of the most popular e-commerce applications. With the growth of online auctions, the amount of online auction fraud has increased significantly. Little work has focused on the criminal profiling of online auction fraudsters. This exploratory study uses multivariate behavioral analysis to profile 61 online auction fraud offenders based on their behavior. The relationships between offender behavior and personal characteristics are also examined. The results yield a taxonomy of online auction fraud offenders: (i) novice-moderately-active; (ii) intermediate-inactive; and (iii) experienced-active. Discriminant analysis of the personal characteristics of offenders yields 78.6% accurate identification of the offender type. The results demonstrate that (intrinsic)personal motivation, education level and age are the most significant characteristics of experienced-active offenders.

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link to article on the BPS digest on  Trojan, C., and Salfati, C. (2011). Linking Criminal History to Crime Scene Behavior in Single-Victim and Serial Homicide: Implications for Offender Profiling Research