The History of Criminal Profiling
In 1888, police surgeon Thomas Bond compiled the first criminal profile to help determine the identity of Jack the Ripper. He assessed autopsy notes and crime scene evidence, indicating the creation of a criminal profile. Thomas Bond believed that he was sexually motivated. He also believed that he was most likely a well-dressed, middle-aged man and understood that he was most likely someone who was often alone.[1]
In 1888, police surgeon Thomas Bond compiled the first criminal profile to help determine the identity of Jack the Ripper. He assessed autopsy notes and crime scene evidence, indicating the creation of a criminal profile. Thomas Bond believed that he was sexually motivated. He also believed that he was most likely a well-dressed, middle-aged man and understood that he was most likely someone who was often alone.
In 1974, following the disappearance of 7-year-old Susie Jaeger and 19-year-old Sandra Smallegan in Montana, the first criminal profile was used to apprehend serial killer David Meirhofer.
7-year-old Susie Jaeger had been kidnapped from her tent in the middle of the night while on a camping trip with her family. FBI agent Pete Dunbar had attended a workshop taught by other agents Patrick Mullany and Howard Teten.
They believed that crime scene evidence could be used as a factor of predicting criminal behavior. Dunbar, Mullany, and Teten worked to create a profile of what type of traits and characteristics the suspect may have had, and called their tool “criminal profiling”.
They considered many different factors, such as how the man who kidnapped Susie Jaeger must have been from and knowledgeable of the small and rural area.
They considered how he must have had to carry the girl, which indicated that he was fit. The quickness and stealth of the kidnapping suggested someone who was intelligent and priorly in the military. This was one of the first official times the FBI applied criminal profiling to a case, and David Meirhofer was later caught.[2]
In the late 1960s and 70s, a man named Harvey Schlossberg was a detective who created many criminal profiles, including one for David Berkowitz, a mass shooter in New York City.
He described the approach he would use at the time, which included sitting down and looking through cases where criminals had been arrested. He would take into account their ages, gender, and most importantly, their education, family life, and whether they had any behavioral problems.
In 1974, the FBI formed its Behavioral Science Unit to investigate serial rape and homicides. Many FBI agents interviewed 36 serial murderers in order to develop a better understanding of who they were and their psychology. Since then, criminal profiling has been a key investigative strategy within the FBI to help them identify an understanding of what kind of person their suspect may be. Descriptions of a person that the FBI has profiled will include the suspect’s possible personality traits and behavioral patterns, which are key to understanding in order to catch a criminal.[3]
The Dangers of Criminal profiling
Although criminal profiling is a helpful tool to help catch criminals, it is a flawed system.
There has been a large amount of controversy surrounding criminal profiling due to the questioning of its validity and ethics.
In 2010, a team of Birmingham City University psychologists published a report arguing that “behavioral profiling has never led to the direct apprehension of a serial killer, a murderer, or a spree killer, so it seems to have no real-world value” (Sample, 2010). Similar to Birmingham City University, people can argue that although it may seem that criminal profiling directly aids in catching criminals, it actually does not and never has.
Criminal profiling can possibly lead to larger issues, such as racial profiling.
Racial profiling by definition: The use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed an offense.
An example could be an officer or a group of officers assuming someone of a certain race or ethnicity is guilty of a crime based on stereotypical and discriminatory views.
The University of Arizona’s Global Campus “The Grit, Glamour, and Gall of Criminal Profiling” article includes a quote from the American Civil Liberties Union, saying it has led “countless people to live in fear, casting entire communities as suspect simply because of what they look like, where they come from, or what religion they adhere to’’ (“Racial Profiling,” n.d.).
For example, in 2013, the New York Police Department had a “stop and frisk” policy, which was essentially police stopping people based on suspicion of illegal activity. 85% of the people stopped were Black and Latino males.[4]
Criminal profiling has gone wrong and put innocent people in jail.
Season 1 Episode 11 of the true crime television show “Killer Instinct” features Mark Safarik, a (now retired) FBI criminal profiler and his work on the Michelle O’Keefe case. Michelle O’Keefe was an 18-year-old woman who was shot and killed in her car in a parking lot in 2006 while a security guard, Raymond Jennings, was patrolling the area.
Los Angeles profilers wanted Safarik to assess the crime scene and evidence, as well as give his opinion on the killer’s motive.
Jennings did not have blood or gunpowder on his uniform and male DNA found under the victim’s fingernails did not match his.
Safarik testified in all three trails held and told jurors he had assessed and reviewed over 4,000 crime scenes and written many articles and book chapters on the subject. He told jurors: “When you start to look at that many cases… you start to see patterns in behavior.”
The prosecutor argued that Safarik’s testimony explained a clear motive, which was sexual assault, but the killer panicked and it ended up being a homicide.
The jury convicted Jennings of second-degree murder, and after his sentence hearing in 2010, he was given 40 years to life in prison.
Jeffrey Ehrlich, an author and lawyer, watched the episode that featured this case and became Jennings’ lawyer. His argument that Jennings was innocent was successful, and by June 2016, prosecutors were convinced that Jennings was not the killer, and asked a judge to release him from prison.
In 2017, Jennings was found innocent and released.
There is little scientific research testing criminal profiling’s reliability. The few studies have caused disagreements regarding if profilers truly are better at predicting a criminal’s characteristics than a nonprofiler.
The public views criminal profilers as something similar to how they are in the movie “Silence of the Lambs,” or the television show “Criminal Minds,” where they are like Sherlock Holmes and can quickly solve a murder case and their motives, but that is not entirely accurate.
“We want to believe in that Holmesian figure that can turn up and magically solve the crime,” said David Wilson, a criminology professor at Birmingham City University.[5] Articles:
1. Bryan Glanz, “6 Key Moments in the History of Criminal Profiling,” Interview Room Recording System by CaseCracker, April 5, 2024, https://www.casecracker.com/2024/04/05/6-key-moments-in-the-history-of-criminal-profiling/.
2. Robert Kahn, “The Two Montana Murders That Started the FBI’s Work in ‘Criminal Profiling,” A&E, March 8, 2022, https://www.aetv.com/real-crime/start-of-fbi-criminal-profiling.
3. Lea Winerman, “Psychological Sleuths--Criminal Profiling: The Reality behind the Myth,” American Psychological Association, July 2004, https://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/criminal.
4. UAGC Staff Member, “The Grit, Glamour, and Gall of Criminal Profiling | UAGC,” UAGC, December 10, 2021, https://www.uagc.edu/blog/grit-glamour-and-gall-criminal-profiling.
5. Marisa Gerber, “How an Ex-FBI Profiler Helped Put an Innocent Man behind Bars,” Los Angeles Times, 2017, https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-profiler-wrongful-conviction-20170720-htmlstory.html.
Behavioral Science Unit Emblem
David Meirhofer being arrested by FBI agents
Harvey Schlossberg teaching a class for New York City police officers, 1972
