New Thoughts on Criminal Profiling
There is a reason why regular detectives are not considered experts of forensic science in court. It’s the same reason that a person with a bachelors degree in psychology is not a psychology export in court. When this stage is reached a strong foundation that makes an individual a competent expert is required. If we proceed with profiling as it seems to be moving in the states we are dooming the future of the discipline.
Criminal profiling should be preformed by psychology experts who have a strong foundation in criminal personality development and the behavioural reflections of that. It should be preformed by an individual who works not on clinical intuition alone but an objective framework that can stand up to academic and expert scrutiny.
Should detectives do profiling? In my opinion no. Should detectives who get advanced psychology training (I.e. at least a clinical masters degree with extensive assessment and criminal/forensic psychology experience) profile? Absolutely, I believe the combination of experience with criminal investigations could be very beneficial in knowing what type of information is most relevant in a profile. But in all honesty as long as an individual has experience with forensic populations I do not believe the investigation experience is as important as the thorough understanding of psychopathic behaviour. After all, that is what profiling is.,Criminal profiling has always been one of the most popular editorial topics within the Forensic Psychology section at Suite101. I would estimate that 90 percent of all email correspondence I receive is in regards to profiling related queries. As a result I have attempted to review the area as intensively as I possibly can.
Lately I have not written much about the topic for I felt I was reiterating myself and in all honesty had nothing new to say about the topic.
I realized that the media is still hot on the topic of profiling. A number of fictional profiling tv series, movies, and books still exist. Additionaly, profiling has remained a stable of press interviews into kidnappings and violent crimes, forensic science reality shows, and non-fiction true crime stories.
In my perception nothing had really changed within the field however. The two profiling methodology types are still bantering about which method is better, while neither of them has pushed for a strong independent investigation of which approach is better.
Methodologies aside I recently stumbled across a program on TV regarding the ethnicity of police officers receiving a course in
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