Profiling: Essential reading

[Sam Flynn]

Howard Brown has posted a link to an extremely useful FBI document on profiling at his website, at http://jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=5615. Those who are either "for" or "against" profiling ought to find plenty of food for thought here.

My thanks again to Howard for finding it. Highly recommended.

[Sara]

That's an interesting link Sam, thanks

I was reading today about this fascinating group of criminologists and profilers who meet to solve cold murder cases in the US - sounds right up our street though few of us would qualify for invitations I fear! It sounds as if they do have a degree of success, though their usual over-confidence might make us wary...

http://tinyurl.com/76bflk

This is their own minimalist website: http://www.vidocq.org/
And a little on the legendary Vidocq: http://www.vidocq.org/vidocq.html

[Roy Corduroy]

Sara, the private group in Philadelphia is quite interesting.

Sam, I read that piece and clicked on the symposium and read it too. Thanks to you and Howard. If you could sum it up - the FBI says don't have tunnel vision, serial killers come in all shapes and sizes. They stress geographic profiling, which seems to be the one sure bet, whereas other factors like motive and level of psychosis can vary greatly.

Thanks again,

Roy

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Fact is, that geographical profiling is not a "sure bet" at all, most if it is actually utter nonsense and in its most academic form even ridiculous. That some offenders might live in a certain area can easily be estimated by simply following ordinary methods attached to ordinary police work - you don't need a profiler to come to such conclusions if you find several victims popping up in a, let's say, very limited area or found in places where it is obvious that the offender knows the area.
In addition, killers do not always follow an expected pattern - some might not reside where the rules of geographical profiling suggest, especially today in modern times when the movements of people really have no limitations.

I don't support or concur with any profiling rules in general, but I actually find motive and psychology more reliable than geographical profiling.

All the best

[Sam Flynn]

...especially today in modern times when the movements of people really have no limitations.

Bingo! And the corollary of that, for people who aren't so mobile, is...?

I actually find motive and psychology more reliable than geographical profiling.

The problem is, Glenn, is that "motive" and "psychology" will never get us anywhere - because it's locked inside the killer's head, and unless he's caught and interviewed we're really none the wiser. Furthermore, as there is no database of the life-events of everyone who's ever lived, it's impossible to "reverse-engineer" a speculative psychology or motive in order to nail a given individual.

However, plotting bodies on a map we can do, easily. When we tie that with socio-economic data on killers (such as any correlation between the social class and ethnicity of the killer and their victims) and comparative mobility of certain classes within a given epoch in time, geographical profiling might be less of a "nonsense" than one might be led to believe.

That some offenders might live in a certain area can easily be estimated by simply following ordinary methods attached to ordinary police work

Now that I fully agree with.

[gordo]

In regards to the ripper case i feel that the profiling can be very misleading mainly due to the lack of a concrete motive for the crimes.
I know there is a underlying motive that of the abhorrence of women but with the crimes its very hard to deduce whether they were done through design,mental state or revenge of some sort and therefore the profiles would change with each motive.

When it comes down to police work then a combination of all techniques are needed to establish a culprit although profiling can only be deemed to have been correct when the offender has been caught
Where as geographical profiling may be more beneficial for the authorities in the apprehension of the individual.

This being my 1st post although i have spent the last few weeks going through as much of the forum as i can i am wondering is there any reference to the possessions on the 5 women at the time of their deaths?
I have read where they found combs and such but no real inventory of their possessions.

Thx gordy..

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Sam,

Geographical profiling is nonsense and a load of rubbish - period.

All the best

[Sam Flynn]

I think you're letting your aversion to the word "profiling" (one which I share) colour your judgment about good deductive reasoning, Glenn. As you said, "That some offenders might live in a certain area can easily be estimated by simply following ordinary methods attached to ordinary police work". That's why I agreed with that part of your post. One doesn't have to use the bogeyman term "geographical profiling" to see that it should be possible to triangulate the broad location of a criminal's residence from the trail of crime-scenes he leaves behind.

It's certainly eminently more feasible than trying to second-guess his psychological makeup and trying to find a name in the census or phone book that might just fit. Personalities/psychologies aren't indexed to the degree that streets are mapped. In fact, they're not indexed at all, which rather makes the "motivic" or "psychological" approach to retrospective detection rather more useless than the geographical.

[caz]

Hi Sam,

Problem is, if you use geographical profiling to conclude that the ripper had his permanent residence and/or workplace in among his victims, you automatically have to make a few rather sweeping assumptions about the killer's personal limits, motives, choices and psychology.

Any man in the LVP with a reasonable income, for instance, would have been as mobile as he wanted or needed to be, and arguably as mobile as many of us these days. Not everyone owns or drives a car (or a lorry ), and omnibus and train services were, if anything, more plentiful and reliable than the modern equivalent.

If I were thinking of making my mark on the world as a serial killer back in 1888, with no CCTV, DNA or fingerprints to worry about, and had a steady income and a bit of common sense, I could do far worse than to nip onto a train each time I fancied ripping someone up, and nip back again, leaving the body for others to deal with and no clues to connect it with me, and laughing at the fools confining their searches to the surrounding lodging houses and hovels for their local, bloodstained lunatic butcher: "Obviously a local man with no money and no travel options, doing it on his own doorstep and managing to dodge the house-to-house searches, otherwise 'e wouldn't keep doing it in the same place, he'd go somewhere different each time so we couldn't catch 'im". If that was the attitude then, as it seems to be now, Jack would have been just fine if he didn't have the limits imposed on him by geographical profiling. What if he did have options? And what if he chose to 'own' a piece of territory where victims were free and easy to come by, rather than to go here, there and everywhere for his sport?

Colin Ireland nipped up on the train from Southend whenever he fancied picking up another unsuspecting gay victim. You know, the trains that have been running since Queen Victoria was a pretty young thing. Ireland could have gone somewhere different each time but no - a man of routine, he used the same pub in Fulham to chat up, or be chatted up by his victims, before going home with them to kill them, then leaving on a morning train back to the Essex coast.

Had CCTV not been around to spot him going home with his last victim, and had fingerprint evidence not been around to put him at a previous murder scene, the police could have ended up making the pub connection but worked out that the killer did not drive to the pub and therefore must live or work locally.

These killers don't have to be wealthy rocket scientists to get one over on people who would put limits on their options, on the rather old-fashioned assumption that nobody in their right mind would keep littering the pavements of Spitalfields with mutilated unfortunates unless they had absolutely no other option.

Love,

Caz
X

[Sam Flynn]

Any man in the LVP with a reasonable income, for instance, would have been as mobile as he wanted or needed to be

It's not just a matter of mobility, though, Caz - it's the time of night, the type of victim, the small scatter-plot represented by the distribution of the victims' bodies across the map... it's the ability of the killer to shuttle back to safety undetected. As far as mobility goes, how mobile could one really have been back then, and at those hours, without the euphonious rattle and clop of a cab as accompaniment?

This isn't so much geographical profiling, as simple logistics.

[protohistorian]

I think you're letting your aversion to the word "profiling" (one which I share) colour your judgment about good deductive reasoning, Glenn. As you said, "That some offenders might live in a certain area can easily be estimated by simply following ordinary methods attached to ordinary police work". That's why I agreed with that part of your post. One doesn't have to use the bogeyman term "geographical profiling" to see that it should be possible to triangulate the broad location of a criminal's residence from the trail of crime-scenes he leaves behind.

It's certainly eminently more feasible than trying to second-guess his psychological makeup and trying to find a name in the census or phone book that might just fit. Personalities/psychologies aren't indexed to the degree that streets are mapped. In fact, they're not indexed at all, which rather makes the "motivic" or "psychological" approach to retrospective detection rather more useless than the geographical.

Ouch Sam. Don't sweat it though, I'll just grab my dignity while I'm down here.

[FrankO]

Colin Ireland nipped up on the train from Southend whenever he fancied picking up another unsuspecting gay victim. You know, the trains that have been running since Queen Victoria was a pretty young thing. Ireland could have gone somewhere different each time but no - a man of routine, he used the same pub in Fulham to chat up, or be chatted up by his victims, before going home with them to kill them, then leaving on a morning train back to the Essex coast.

Hi Caz,

I’m in no way saying that the Ripper couldn’t have been a commuting killer who travelled by train (or whatever), but:

It’s one thing to do what Ireland did, but it’s quite another to do what he did but instead bloodily kill and mutilate his victims somewhere out in the streets of Fulham and then take the morning train back to Southend.

As you know, the most risky period for the Ripper, or any killer for that matter, was between the starting of the attack and closing the door to his home or safe place behind him. So, the shorter that time, the less time people, including the police, had to notice him and the blood that was undoubtedly on him. Or, in other words, it would be better if he had a home or safe place at walking distance from where he killed.

All the best,
Frank

[caz]

Hi Frank,

I'm not sure I get the logic. If the police were only looking for the killer a certain distance from where his victims were found, surely one reason why he wasn't caught might just have been that instead of staying somewhere within their 'search' area, waiting for the possible knock on the door that could summon him to hell (how would that be a 'safe place'?), he was able to get himself right out of the immediate danger zone and become a needle in the infinitely larger haystack that was 'NOT Whitechapel'. The maximum distance he could have had to travel with the police still on his tail was defined by how far they could reasonably and practically extend their searches following another murder. And that would apply equally to anyone with their base at or near the extremity.

I'm not sure what would give a killer more comfort: being able to hole up very quickly and extremely close to each of his murders and get some breathing space, but then having to hope for the best that he won't be unearthed with the odd trophy, or recognised by a witness, before he can even think of going on the prowl again; or having a bit further to go before he can count himself completely in the clear unless there's a next time.

Love,

Caz
X

[Grim]

Sam,

Geographical profiling is nonsense and a load of rubbish - period.

All the best

If you are going to make absurd claims such as this could you at least back it up with theories, evidence or proof?

Thank you.

[cappuccina]

...whatever one wishes to call it, the fact that the Ripper could exit sooo quickly, and seemed to know where the constables were on duty (as well as "shortcuts") and what their "rounds" were points to a local man...