Forensic Psychology: Introduction to Investigative Psychology

May 27, 2010
Sasha Maggio

Investigative Psychology - Microsoft Free ClipArt

Profiling and Crime Scene Analysis only scratch the surface of all that this specialty encompasses, but there is still a lack of scientific research.

Investigative Psychology began, officially, in London in the mid-1980s when Professor David Canter was called upon by Scotland Yard. The police were hoping Prof. Canter could find a means of integrating known psychology methods with known police methods and present to them a means of evaluating crimes with more efficiency. The results of Prof. Canter's work became known as Investigative Psychology.

Advances in Profiling

Professor Canter is considered one of the greatest pioneers in the realm of criminal profiling and he was the first to introduce these methods to the U.K. Profiling is meant to serve the purposes of eliminating less-likely suspect groups and possibly limiting the region in which the unknown offender will be found. Though at first glance criminal profiling seems very cool and useful, it's true usefulness has long been subject for debate, primarily due to a lack of empirical research making profiling a science. Without solid research, following scientific methods, to back up profiling's validity it remains more of a pseudoscience. We should not lose sight, however, that Psychology as a field remained considered a pseudoscience for a very long time before scientific methods were finally applied to it and its research and methods.

That is not to say there hasn't been research done in the realm of profiling, simply that more scientific research needs to be done to help solidify profiling as a legitimate investigative tool.

Factors in Criminal Profiling and Crime Prediction

Several key factors have been determined that are used by many of the world's profiling specialists. Static Risk Factors are a general label that refers to characteristics that do not tend to change. These can include gender (in most cases), birth order, ethnicity and ethnic background, biological parents, and so forth. In contrast, Dynamic Risk Factors consist of the types of characteristics that tend to change over time. This could be ones attitudes or beliefs, for example.

Dynamic Risk Factors are often divided into two types: Stable Dynamic Factors are those that can and will change, but tend to be slow in changing; Acute Dynamic Factors are more like mood swings or emotions which have potential to change quickly.

Modus Operandi

Many mistakenly believe that the modus operandi, or MO for short, is a key factor in profiling. The problem with this thinking is that MO is actually more in the realm of a Stable Dynamic Factor. Many criminals will slowly adjust and/or change their MO over time as they become more successful in their crimes. Other factors can also provoke MO changes, such as aging, injuries, availability of resources, or perhaps from psychological disorders, which can greatly worsen if untreated and thus affect behavior and cognition.

Other factors that can affect MO changes are the availability of educational resources. For example, many people in the world today have access to the internet, or libraries, for self-study. Others might choose jobs in fields that provide them with information that they then apply to crime, which is nothing new in criminal behavior.

Psychological Autopsy

Investigative Psychology also houses a method known as the Psychological Autopsy. This is an assessment, by a Psychologist, of the victim (body, history, etc) in an attempt to profile the victim postmortem. This process is sometimes called a Reconstructive Psychological Evaluation or an Equivocal Death Analysis.

The Psychological Autopsy was designed to help police investigate deaths when the cause of death seemed ambiguous: Was it a suicide? Homicide? Accident?

These methods can sometimes be difficult if, prior to the police arriving at the crime scene, someone moves the body or rearranges things. This could be a criminal trying to make the scene seem like a non-homicide, or to attempt to throw the police off his/her trail. This could also have been done by family or friends that may have found the victim in a compromising position, as is sometimes seen in accidental deaths.

Geographical Profiling and Mapping

This process was developed in the hopes of narrowing the locations in which police would find their suspect. Geographical Profiling refers to locations and movements of am individual serial offender, while Geographical Mapping is more of a broad analysis of crime and criminals in a given area. Think of them sort of like the Psychology and Sociology of crime; where Psychology focuses often on an individual and Sociology focuses often on a community or group of individuals.

Mapping can help determine which areas might be, or be becoming, "hot spots" for certain crimes, and this method has been around for well over a century. Geographical Profiling is relatively new, however.

Research in Canada in the late 1990s resulted in the beginning of a computer program known as CGT (Criminal Geographic Targeting). The program, developed by D. Kim Rossmo, has continued promise, though is still not sufficient for predicting crime, but has shown a lot of promise in helping investigators understand criminal motivation.