Benedict Cumberbatch, Robert Downey Jr., Jonny Lee Miller. What do these men have in common besides being encased in poster form on my wall? These men have all portrayed the great William Sherlock Scott Holmes. Attractive, intelligent, sociopathic, just my type of guy. Sherlock Holmes is known for his ability to solve cases almost completely by just looking at the crime scene. After watching another episode of Sherlock, I had to find out how he does it. I found that Sherlock actually uses a technique called psychological profiling. I then moved on to watch Criminal Minds, Profiler, Silence of the Lambs, and I’ll admit it… I watched Elementary. I realized that all of these shows use psychological profiling to catch the criminals but it’s something that seems to get glazed over compared to the rest of the episode. So today let’s look at the history behind behavior psychology, how it actually works, and finally examine the controversy surrounding this fast-growing technique. 

  
Its 1888, London’s East End. Jack the Ripper has killed his fifth victim, a prostitute by the name of Mary Kelly. Scotland Yard stood around in their trench coats smoking their pipes, baffled by these grotesque murders. They decide to call in a surgeon, Dr. Thomas Bond. Investigators wanted a detailed description of the wounds, but in Dr. Bond’s notes, he left them a little more. Bond wrote in his notes that all five had been committed by one person who was physically strong, cool, and daring. He thought the man would be quiet and inoffensive in appearance, middle-aged, and neatly attired, probably wearing a cloak to hide the bloody effects of his attacks out in the open. He would be a loner, without a real occupation, eccentric, and mentally unstable. Very likely, those who knew him would be aware that he was not right in his mind. Even with all these details, as we all know, Jack the Ripper was never found.  In the coming years, criminal profiling would move out of the hands of surgeons and onto the laps of psychiatrists. Throughout the coming decades, other professionals studied the work of different criminals. They published their works and this formed the basis of the development of profiling.  Once the 50’s and 60’s hit, serial murders skyrocketed, in response to this J. Edgar Hoover, formed the first FBI Behavior Analysis Unit. Until a case in Montana, police and other officials were wary. After the BAU solved this case, the demand increased rapidly. By 1977, the unit had an identity, comprised of a three-pronged purpose: crime scene analysis, profiling, and analysis of threatening letters. The early profilers, those who entered the BSU were bold, innovative, and instinctive. They knew they were pioneering a program that would have to be nurtured along and carefully introduced to those law enforcement agencies that resisted change. Somehow, the right personalities came together to produce what many today regard as an important contribution to understanding the most brutal and extreme human behavior.

Now even the great Sherlock Holmes would say there is a method to his madness… For him it’s probably all that cocaine he does but still psychological profiling isn’t just complete guess work. *Retired FBI agent Gregg McCrary says that “The basic premise is that behavior reflects personality.” Criminal profiling works on the principle that each and every criminal will want to attain a certain set of values. These values, also called signatures, are as individual as your own handwritten signature and once identified can be used to help law enforcement make a positive identification. Profiling also takes a look at victimology. Victimology is the study of the victims effected by this crime and by this criminal. Victimology includes anything and everything about the victim. This is part of the psychological profile. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a psychological profile is “a description of the likely character, behavior, and interests of a violent criminal that is based on evidence collected at a crime scene.” Other evidence, such as notes left by the killer, the location of the killing, or the state of the crime scene can allow profilers to develop theories about the criminal’s identity.  *Agent Schlossberg, who developed profiles of many criminals, including David Berkowitz--New York City's "Son of Sam"--describes the approach he used in the late 1960s and 70s: "What I would do," he says, "is sit down and look through cases where the criminals had been arrested. I listed as many factors as I could come up with, and then I added them up to see which were the most common." This might include things like the suspect's education level or psychological traumas he has suffered.  Profilers also look at what is called the homicidal triad. The Homicidal Triad consists of three factors that would have occurred in childhood: bedwetting, animal cruelty, and a fascination with starting fires. Once this all comes together, profilers are able to release this information to police and the general public. This profile helps police narrow down a suspect list, and the public look for anyone who fits this description.

Psychologist Harvey Schlossberg, former director of psychological services for the New York Police Department says that "In some ways, profiling is really still as much an art as a science.” Dr. Schlossberg isn’t the only one who describes profiling this way, in fact most profilers do. With psychological profiling being viewed as such an art, there is a lot of controversy surrounding it. While there isn’t a sure-fire way to detect whether a profiler is better equipped to identify a criminal over someone who isn’t, many scientists have tried.  In a 1990 study published in Law and Human Behavior Anthony Pinizzotto, now with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit and Norman Finkel, of Georgetown University, tested a group of FBI profilers, police detectives trained by the FBI, clinical psychologists and students. The researchers gave each group detailed case materials from two solved crimes (a murder and a rape), then asked the participants to write profiles of the type of people likely to commit such crimes, and then compared the profiles with the actual, convicted offenders. The results were mixed. The trained profilers wrote longer and more detailed profiles, and their profiles of the rapist were more correct than any other groups. In the murder case, however, they fared no better on average than the non-profilers did. *In 2003, Australian forensic psychologist Richard Kocsis published the results of a series of studies that expanded on Pinizzotto and Finkel's work. Kocsis used solved arson and murder cases to test groups of profilers, psychologists, science students and psychics. This time, the professional profilers made more correct predictions about the offenders than any other group. But they weren't uniformly good at their jobs--they also had the highest statistical variation among any of the groups. Interestingly enough, the science students did the second-best job. Kocsis says this indicates that a capacity for logical reasoning is a particularly important profiling skill.

So today we’ve examined the sad childhood of the history of psychological profiling, investigated how profiling works, and built a profile on the controversy surrounding psychological profiling. Psychological profiling has helped many communities catch their criminals but is it really that hard, I mean I would say it was elementary my dear, Watson.