Role of Psychologist in Criminal Profiling

Psychologist play a major role in society. They work in hospitals, treatment centers, behavioral centers, outpatient health centers, courts, jails, and detention centers. They watch for changes in their patient’s behavior, attitude, and mood. These medical professional documents whether the changes in the client’s behavior is bad or good. Psychologist study people behavior which is different from most scientific careers because behavior from a client or criminal actions is not a tangible object. Psychologist do use the scientific method, but the field of psychology is mostly observational.

Some of the theories that psychologist follow is not testable like other sciences. Psychologist study the behavior of people for many hours. They study how people interact with one another during different types of situations. This allows the psychologist to professionally predict the action of people during different situations. Most of the time, a psychologist makes correct predictions on their client's behavior. However, psychologist is not always correct when conducting predictions because their the field of psychology is not an exact science. Psychologist use symptoms and signs from data bases of reported antisocial behaviors to predict when their client becomes a criminal. The have devised a way of figuring out if a person will commit a criminal act in their lifetime, whether a person will become a career criminal, and the likelihood a person will commit another crime. Psychologist rely on human behavior being predictable therefore, a person with similar actions can be compared to the person who is being observed.

A criminal psychologist finds behavioral patterns and description on a person at the location of a crime scene from facts, details, and known environment. The practice of psychology and criminal profiling came from the mental health realm of study. This where psychologist examined the mental capacity and health of the insane. However, in modern times police officers, corrections departments, criminal justice practitioners and federal law enforcement agents seek the help of psychologist for criminally profiling suspects and criminals.

The person who is being observed must have the same behavior, and behavior patterns, in a similar situation and environment as the description in the database. Psychologist do not gain all their knowledge from going to college, they gain a lot of their knowledge from observing people. Psychologist provide criminal profiling service to their clients, courts, and correctional centers. They used their criminal profiling skills to advise judges, and train police on the proper way conducting investigation on suspects and criminals. In addition, psychologist criminal profile provides the necessary information to law enforcement agencies to track down criminals and they conduct criminal profile for jury selection.

Psychologist in criminology study the behavior of criminal’s actions and psychology is a part of forensics aspect of criminology when it comes to legal statutes. Psychologist diagnose and treat violent criminals and the mental ill criminals. Psychologist play a major role when criminals are questioned on their events during a crime or activities surrounding a crime. A criminal is questioned by a psychologist about a cavity during a specific time frame and actions they criminal or suspect have committed in the past. There is a specific type of psychologist that work in the law enforcement field that questions suspect and criminals past activities and events. These psychologists study the actions of criminals when the criminals are asked questions. Psychologist study the behavior of criminals and diagnose mental health issues using another health book that is specific for mental illness and mental disorders. Psychologist look for strange and unusual behavior from criminals and suspects in comparison to the usual expected behavior. Psychologist study the criminal and suspect internal anatomy when it comes to a normal person body system and anatomy. Psychologist look for changes in rate and abnormalities in the nervous system. These changes in the internal system of a mentally ill criminal are looked for by psychologist to develop treatment plans. Phycologist use a special health book to identify different types of mental illness that criminals have when they are in police custody. 

Psychologist use different test when profiling clients. Some psychologist uses a diagnostic test, while other psychologists use an attitude test to help profile their clients. Both the diagnostic test and the attitudinal test have been used for many years by psychologist and professionals in the mental health and correctional industries. Psychologist use the diagnostic and attitude test to find out information about clients, inmates, suspects, and the mentally ill. Some of their findings from the test given to their clients would be, the client’s motivation for having antisocial behavior, and the formation of the client’s personality. Psychologist can find changes in the client’s, patient’s, and criminal’s behavior from the mental test. mental test can help pinpoint criminals’ chances of reoffending and their likelihood of the offender progressing in a life of crime. In addition, mental test can find criminals behavior patterns and hidden dangerous behaviors. After the information is gathered from the client through various mental test, the psychologist can form a professional opinion about the client’s behavior. The opinion and the detailed analysis help the psychologist form a treatment for clients. Psychologist compare behaviors of clients to known antisocial behaviors of criminals. They use this data from the national investigation agencies and the correctional centers to form a correlation of behaviors between the client’s behavior and the known criminal’s behavior. Psychologist study the effects of relationships and actions that that occurs between their client and others when conducting a profile. 

The goal of the psychologist is to find the motive of the client’s actions during the criminal profile. There are many details that can be tested during a psychologist profile of clients and criminals. For example, the client’s mental health and emotional state can be tested by a psychologist. Psychologist use inductive and deductive evidence to from a criminal profile. In addition, psychologist uses their client’s home life, usual surroundings, love ones, friends, co-workers, morals, values, and beliefs to add to the client’s behavioral details of the profile. Psychologist do not assume that their client is the same even though their client may have similar characteristics and behavior as someone else, they look at each person as being different. Psychologist look for small details that make their client different from any other person that they have evaluated. It is very important for the psychologist to stay away from making broad assumption about a race, class, sex, and age of a type of people. They must stay focused on the fact that anything can happen or can be done by any person at any given time frame. 

Psychologist working in the field of law enforcement look for behaviors in their clients that is different from the behavior of the masses of people. For instance, some psychologist looks for behaviors in their clients that are associated with most serial killers which is different from the average adult behavior patterns. In some cases, psychologist help police to find details within the investigation when the criminal psychologist profiles a criminal. 

A psychologist has an important role in criminal justice. They create criminal profiles for law enforcement agents from the details of suspects and criminal’s behavior and history. A criminal profile is made from a collection information and details about specific person and event. Often, a test on a person’s mental health state is made by a psychologist before a ruling or sentencing is made. Criminal profiling helps law enforcement agents find criminals who commit crimes by using details from the crime scene to find the exact person who committed the crime from a group of people. The scientific method is used in criminal profiling to find out what actual happen with the person accused at the crime scene. Actions of the person at the crime scene is compared to criminal’s profiles in the law enforcement database. A psychologist working in law enforcement may use inductive and deductive methods of criminal profiling when they are on a search for evidence to create a criminal profile. The inductive method of criminal profiling is used to find common ties or links between the actions at the crime scene and typical criminal actions. Forensic data is obtained using the scientific method along with many examinations of evidence provided by the psychologist’s criminal profile allows the deductive method of criminal profiling to take place. Psychologist working in law enforcement sometimes use guess and hunches during profiling, but they do not rely on this type of evidence alone. Psychologist must analyze specific details and make use of the scientific method to gain an accurate judgement and evaluation of a suspect in the criminal profile. Criminal profiling is used to find criminals actions, events, illegal activities, frauds and cybercrimes.

In conclusion, psychologist observe the criminal actions, and examine their minds from the actions and behaviors of criminals. After the detailed and evidences have been collected, psychologist can create a crime scene and pinpoint the location and actions of the suspects when committing criminal acts. Psychologist observe how the criminal or client answer questions in court. An observation of the client is made by the psychologist when the client is examined in court when presented with evidence and talking with people. Psychologist carefully examine their client so that they can create a pattern of behavior form their clients. From the pattern of behavior, they can figure out when the crime in question took place. In addition, psychologist compare actions and behavior patterns from the suspect to the criminal database and the mental ill database. They are looking for similarities in behavior between the suspect and the criminal in the database. Sometimes, cases are solved using this method because the person has the exact same characteristics to another suspect of an unsolved case. Psychologist examine witnesses, criminals, police, and all other parties at the crime scene. The different people at the crime scene have a different viewpoint of what happened at the crime scene. All these people might have a similar story but their story and details account of what happen when the crime occurred would be different. The purpose of criminal profiling is to single out a single person who is suspected of a specific crime committed during a particular time frame and location. Psychologist use a profile to make assumptions based on evident or actions on their client at the time of the crime. The details provided must strongly give weight to the psychologist prediction of evident that occurred at the crime scene. The evident, and details must establish a clear linkage to psychologist claim that the suspect committed an act.