Professionalizing Offender Profiling

Forensic and Investigative Psychology in Practice

Laurence Alison, Lee Rainbow, Laurence Alison, Lee Rainbow

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780415668798
• eBook ISBN: 9781136674174
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Offender profiling is now viewed as an integral part of serious crime investigations by many law enforcement agencies across the world and continues to attract a high public and media profile. Despite almost three decades of research and developments in the field, the public impression of offender profiling is still influenced by misleading media portrayals, which fail to acknowledge the significant developments in theory, research and practice.

This book is the only book on the market to illustrate in detail the actual practice of Behavioural Investigative Advice, its diversity in application, the underpinning academic literature and the remaining research questions and recommendations. Focussing on the professionalization of this developing discipline, it provides a fascinating insight into the modern role of a Behavioural Investigative Adviser, dispelling many of the myths still associated with offender profiling, and illustrating the continued aspiration of contemporary practitioners to adhere to the highest scientific standards. It provides a journey through the significant efforts to professionalise both the process and product of Behavioural Investigative Advice, supported by relevant theoretical, methodological and operational considerations.

Edited by and containing contributions from some of the most respected and experienced researchers and practitioners working today, this book will be essential reading for Police Officers, researchers, students and anyone with an interest in the professionalization and contemporary contribution of forensic psychology to 21st century criminal investigation.

Part I Professionalizing the process

Lee Rainbow

In 1999, the first ever full-time offender profiler was appointed by the then National Crime Faculty to provide behavioural science support to UK Policing in the investigation of serious crime. As such, whilst on the eve of the new Millennium offender profiling became a recognized UK profession, impartial and objective reflection would suggest it still had some way to go in terms of recognized standards of professionalism.

In the intervening decade however, significant progress has been achieved that has earned the UK the reputation for being at the forefront of the discipline. Gone are the days of subjective, unsupported musings concerning an unknown offender's personality; gone are the lack of regulatory and quality control mechanisms; and gone is the environment in which Senior Investigating Officers are seduced by abstract psychological rhetoric with no investigative utility. In their place a new discipline, that of Behavioural Investigative Advice has emerged. This critical milestone in the development of UK practice is however more than a change in terminology. It represents a clear acknowledgement that previous practice fell short of the professionalism required in such a critical environment and refocused the agenda within which contributions from forensic psychology and behavioural science might be effectively harnessed.

The first section of this book will illustrate this continued and dynamic professionalization (the process is ongoing), focusing on the process of providing behavioural investigative advice. The opening chapter reflects on the pertinent issues surrounding the effective management of such activity, making explicit the experiences, developments, learning and achievements of such endeavours from a UK perspective. The issues of national regulation of professional and ethical standards, working conditions, audit and evaluation, strategic development and learning and developing of the necessary skills are all explored, together with some broad observations regarding the future challenges facing the field. This comprehensive overview of the current UK perspective and professional aspirations of the discipline provides a framing context for the more detailed discussion that follows.

We then expand on this theme of clearly articulating contemporary practice with a unique insight from practitioners at the forefront of today's operational service provision. They articulate precisely what it means to be a professional Behavioural Investigative Advicer (BIA) in the UK, making explicit the actual role, services and products, underlying investigative philosophy and working practices, whilst dispelling many of the myths still surrounding such activity within both the popular and academic literature. This deconstruction of the naive ‘profiling as pen portraits’ view is reinforced in Chapter 3, which highlights how assisting the decision making of Investigating Officers is a key feature of advice provision, from a traditional decision-making perspective focusing on heuristics and biases. Such discussion serves not only to further inform an accurate perception of BIA activity, but also provides a useful exemplar of the theoretical, practical and interdisciplinary mechanisms underpinning such activity.

These practitioner views from the front line are complemented by a more academic perspective in Chapter 4, exploring what can and cannot be achieved within the domain of behavioural investigative advice, with reference to the published research evidence. In this chapters the authors highlight the interdisciplinary nature of behavioural advice and consider that it lies at a possible intersection between psychology, criminology, sociology, geography, communications studies, business management and statistics amongst many others, depending upon the nature and type of advice. The authors argue that very little has been done to formally identify this range of activity and breadth of disciplines as well as failing to explore the potential tacit, experiential knowledge that may also be relevant.

Chapter 5 represents long overdue work in exploring the actual expertise of Behavioural Investigative Advisers, moving the discussion from what BIAs do to how they do it, through the synthesis of observations made by Knabe-Nicol in her ethnographic field studies and cognitive task analysis with BIAs here in the UK and in Germany. Many of the individuals in these studies have over ten years’ experience working on high profile, difficult and serious cases, and yet there has been little systematic effort to capture these experiences and explore the expertise gained. The unique access to this set of experienced practitioners provides a critical insight into the cognitive processes and expertise required to work in such a demanding field. This analysis is complemented by a similar exploration of the work of Geographical Profilers in Chapter 6, allowing the reader to broaden their understanding of this related but distinct discipline and reflect on the differences in specific expertise between the two.

Building on this theme of how Behavioural Investigative Advisers synthesise their expertise within the investigative arena, Chapter 7 provides a detailed example of an innovative new development from Gregory and Rainbow in response to evolving forensic science techniques. Through detailed articulation of a robust scientific methodology for the prioritization of DNA analysis results, the contribution of a BIA in offender identification can be seen to be highly significant and of critical importance in complex inquiries. Such pioneering work further emphasizes both the continued scientific aspirations and achievements of the discipline as well as providing powerful evidence for the essential and successful integration of such expertise within UK serious crime investigations.

The section concludes with some recent research on prioritization – specifically with regards to setting investigative strategy for internet offenders. McManus, Long and Alison explain how the very large numbers of individuals scanning the internet for indecent images of children means that not all individuals can be looked at in one go (resources would be too rapidly depleted). Therefore, we must evaluate who to look at first (in terms of risk of contact offending). McManus and co authors discuss the early stages of exploring this challenge – by reference to clear articulation of the problem, careful consideration of theory via the relevant literature and practical consideration of what will work ‘at the coal face’ in terms of utility and confidence in any to-be-developed tools. This journey of ‘problem – theory – application’ is a common theme throughout the book and one to which we will return in Part 2.

Please note that, throughout this volume, the term BIA has been used interchangeably to denote behavioural investigative advice and Behavioural Investigative Adviser(s).

1 Taming the beast

The UK approach to the management of behavioural investigative advice

Lee Rainbow

DOI: 10.4324/9780203809259-1

The goal of this chapter is to reflect on the pertinent issues surrounding the effective management of behavioural investigative advice, by making explicit the experiences, developments, learning and achievements of such endeavours from a UK perspective. Specifically, the issues of national regulation of professional and ethical standards, working conditions for Behavioural Investigative Advisers, audit and evaluation, strategic development, and learning and development of profiling skills are explored. Some broad observations regarding evaluation of the UK approach are discussed and consideration given to the future challenges facing the field of behavioural investigative advice provision to major crime investigations.

Introduction

In 1992 the Metropolitan Police Service commissioned research into the investigative usefulness of ‘offender profiling’, following concerns that despite over 200 British Police investigations utilizing such services in the preceding decade, no reliable or valid scientific assessment had been conducted to evaluate its usefulness (see Copson, 1995).

Whilst the explicit focus of the research was directed towards the methodologies employed and the resulting usefulness of profiling, it also provided important signposts towards the challenges facing this emerging discipline within the UK; most significantly in the observation that no governing body for the regulation of professional or ethical standards existed, and that there was no formally recognized programme for the training of UK practitioners in profiling techniques.

As the debate concerning both the overall usefulness of profiling and the specific approaches employed by profilers continues unabated (e.g., Ainsworth, 2001; Alison, Bennell, Mokros and Ormerod, 2002; Alison, Smith, Eastman and Rainbow, 2003a; Alison, Smith and Morgan, 2003b; Alison, West and Goodwill, 2004; Badcock, 1997; Boon, 1997; Canter, Alison, Alison and Wentnick, 2004; Hazelwood, 1995; Mokros and Alison, 2002; Pinizzotto and Finkel, 1990) within the published domain, the business of profiling continues. Whilst efforts, such as those highlighted above, demonstrate an increasing understanding by the UK Police Service that such innovative investigative techniques must be properly underpinned through thorough research programmes, the operational demands of the senior investigating officer are far removed from such idealistic goals and protracted timescales. Indeed, the use of Behavioural Investigative Advisers is advocated on UK senior detective training programmes and fully enshrined within national guidance manuals including the Murder Investigation Manual (ACPO, 2006).

It is this fundamental discord between the immediate practical needs of the investigator and the ultimate goals of the researcher which presents the most immediate challenge to the effective application of behavioural investigative advice to major crime investigations. Whilst the published literature is characterized by academics and practitioners continuing to debate the fundamental principles and practices, theoretical models and practical applications, the issue of how best to manage the discipline until such a ‘holy grail’ is achieved has received scant attention.

It is the goal of this paper to reflect on the pertinent issues surrounding the effective management of behavioural investigative advice, by making explicit the experiences, developments, learning and achievements of such endeavours from a UK perspective.

National regulation of professional and ethical standards

It was acknowledged as early as 1987, with the inception of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Crime Committee on Offender Profiling that the practice of giving and using behavioural and psychological advice had developed in a somewhat ad hoc fashion in the absence of any strategic overview or regulation from the Police Service. Detailing the extensive and commendable efforts of this sub-committee and its subsequent guises to address these issues is beyond the scope of this paper. However, it is noteworthy that it was not until 2001 that a significant watershed in such endeavours occurred; most conspicuously evidenced by the replacement of the term ‘offender profiler’ with ‘Behavioural Investigative Advisor’ (BIA). Built upon existing foundations, including a central register of experts and a tacit agreement that investigators would only utilize the services of such ‘ACPO Approved’ BIAs, three critical factors were central in achieving the effective management and delivery of qualified behavioural advice to the UK Police Service that are experienced today: (1) the establishment of...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table Of Contents
• List of figures and tables
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• PART I Professionalizing the process
• PART II Professionalizing the product
• Index