Offender

Profiling and
Crime Linkage
Presented by:
Layda, Maria Rebekah Alaine B.
Crime Linkage
• Crime linkage is “a form of behavioural analysis used to identify crimes committed by
the same offender, through their behavioural similarity” (Woodhams, Hollin, & Bull,
2007, p. 233) and sometimes their geographical or temporal proximity. It is also called
case linkage, linkage analysis, and comparative case analysis.

• Aims to identify crimes that have been committed by the same offender, using similarity
in offender crime scene behaviour as the basis for this decision.

Consistency Hypothesis
behaving in a relatively similar way each time they commit a crime of that type.
Evidence-based Practice
• The use of crime linkage analysis to support decision-making in
police investigations, as well as its use in legal proceedings,
means that the implications of incorrectly linking crimes are
significant

• Crime linkage rests on two assumptions; those of behavioural

consistency and distinctiveness.
 Limitations of the Research on Crime
Linkage
• One primary limitation is that much of the crime linkage literature has relied on samples of solved
crime. This is problematic because the crimes may have been solved in the first place due to having
been committed in a highly consistent and/or distinctive manner.

• A second limitation is that much research has focused on examining crime linkage within specific
crime types.

• Third, more research is needed to test crime linkage in practice, including how analysts identify
behavioural consistency and distinctiveness, what factors they use to link crimes and whether their
decision-making can be improved using statistically-based decision-support tools.
OFFENDER PROFILING
• Offender profiling is also known by many names, including psychological profiling,
criminal profiling, behavioural investigative advice (BIA), investigative profiling, crime
scene analysis and criminal investigative advice.

• refers to the practice of inferring an offender’s characteristics from crime scene behavior.

• The roots of offender profiling have been traced back to Dr. Thomas Bond who provided the
UK police with an opinion regarding Jack the Ripper’s physical appearance, likely dress,
state of mind and motivation for a series of murders in London in 1880 (Canter, 2004).

• Offender profilers come from a variety of professional backgrounds.

Schools of Thought in Offender
Profiling
1. The criminal investigative approach (also called the FBI
approach, criminal investigative analysis or crime scene analysis)

2. The clinical-practitioner approach (also known as diagnostic

evaluation)

3. The statistical approach (sometimes investigative psychology).

The Criminal Investigative Approach
• The criminal investigative approach to profiling is informed by the investigator’s extensive knowledge
developed from exposure to a large number of cases and their experience of criminal investigations

• This typology distinguished between murderers who were classified as organised, disorganised or mixed,
based on their crime scene behaviour.
The Clinical-practitioner Approach
• Several authors have noted that there is no one approach to “clinical profiling”

• Some clinical profilers have likened their approach to that of the original FBI profilers,
interpreting the offender’s motive and drawing on psychological literature to make predictions
about the offender’s characteristics.

• The aim of clinical profiling is not to solve a case, but to provide “insight into the nature of both
the case and the offender(s)”

• The clinical profiler begins by collating all information available about the crime including details
of the victim, the crime scene and the circumstances of the offence. This might include visiting the
crime scene itself. From this the profiler must identify the “crime type at a fundamental level (e.g.
murder) and then move on to be more specific about its character”, in terms of the weapons used,
the nature and extent of the victim’s injuries and so on.
The Statistical Approach
• The statistical approach to profiling is attributed to David Canter and his colleagues, which “is primarily based on the
multivariate analysis of behavioural and other information found at the crime scene to infer an offender’s characteristics and
psychological processes”

• Canter (2000) sees offender profiling as being firmly rooted in the discipline of psychology and argues that offender
profiling is similar to other areas of psychology. In occupational psychology, for example, psychologists try to predict
someone’s future behaviour in the workplace based on what we know about their characteristics (as ascertained from
psychometric tests).

• In constructing his/her profile, the statistical profiler will use statistically derived relationships between crime scene
behaviour and offender characteristics that have been generated from databases of similar solved crimes and apprehended
criminals to make predictions about the characteristics of the suspect in question (Snook et al., 2007).

• The statistical approach to profiling is therefore a research oriented approach to profiling and many studies exist which have
tried to identify bivariate relationships between single crime scene behaviours and single offender characteristics (e.g.
Davies, Wittebrood, & Jackson, 1998; House, 1997) or which have clustered together crime scene behaviours to identify
styles of offending with the aim of investigating whether particular offender characteristics are more often associated with a
particular style of offending (e.g. Canter & Fritzon, 1998; Canter & Heritage, 1990).
The Assumptions of Offender Profiling
• Offender profiling shares two assumptions with crime linkage – those of offender behavioural
consistency and distinctiveness – and thus the empirical research on these assumptions has
already been described above.

• In addition, offender profiling assumes a relationship between the way someone behaves at a
crime scene and their characteristics. This has been called the A(ctions) → C(haracteristics)
relationship (Canter, 1995) or alternatively the homology assumption (Mokros & Alison, 2002).

• If such relationships exist, it follows that offenders who behave in a similar way when
committing their offences should be similar in terms of their characteristics, and conversely, that
offenders with differing offending styles should differ in their characteristics.
Evaluations of the Effectiveness of
Offender Profiling
• Within the popular literature on offender profiling, one does not have to look far to find reports of the
effectiveness of offender profiling. Several authors have highlighted that there is a “plethora” of positive
anecdotes about the use of offender profiling but that empirical support for these claims is lacking (Snook et
al., 2008; Woskett, Coyle, & Lincoln, 2007).

• Snook et al. (2008) also caution that these anecdotes can be misleading, for example, where profilers report
the number of correct predictions made rather than the proportion (which would take account of incorrect
predictions).
Interpersonal
Violence and
Stalking
Presented by:
Layda, Maria Rebekah Alaine B.
Intimate Partner Violence
• Refer to acts of aggression or violence that take place between intimate
partners. The definition of this term is understood to be “any form of
aggression and/or controlling behaviours used against a current or past
intimate partner of any gender or relationship status” to reflect that this
problem can occur between people of any gender or sexuality in any
intimate relationship status and be of varying forms and severity.
Examples of the different forms of
intimate partner violence
Examples of the different forms of
intimate partner violence 1.2
Stalking
• The term “stalking” is a colloquial term adopted as a consequence of a number of high
profile cases in which individuals experienced repeated criminal behaviour and/or
harassment (Budd & Mattinson, 2000).

• Implied by the term “stalking” are predatory pursuit behaviours (Westrup & Fremouw,
1998), and while following may constitute a proportion of the behaviours identified as
stalking, the actual range of behaviours that fall within this term is much broader.

• Sheridan and Davies (2004) suggest that an infinite array of behaviours may be defined
as stalking because definition of the phenomenon is in fact driven by victim perceptions.
Rates of Intimate Partner Violence
• Data from CDC's National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) indicate:
About 41% of women and 26% of men experienced contact sexual violence, physical
violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner and reported an intimate partner
violence-related impact during their lifetime.
• Over 61 million women and 53 million men have experienced psychological aggression
by an intimate partner in their lifetime.

• IPV is a significant public health issue that has many individual and societal costs. About
75% of female IPV survivors and 48% of male IPV survivors experience some form of
injury related to IPV. IPV can also result in death.
Rates of Stalking Behaviours

• About 1.3% (3.4 million) of all persons age 16 or older were victims of
stalking in 2019.
• The percentage of persons who experienced stalking declined from 1.5% in
2016 to 1.3% in 2019.
• Less than a third (29%) of all stalking victims reported the victimization to
police in 2019.
• In 2019, females (1.8%) were stalked more than twice as often as males (0.8%).
• In 2019, an estimated 67% of victims of both traditional stalking and stalking
with technology were fearful of being killed or physically harmed.
Rates of Intimate Partner Stalking
• Within the international literature, it has been claimed that victims of stalkers are most likely to be
current or former intimates or spouses

Stalking Within The Context Of An

Intimate Relationship
• In a study of 120 male IPV perpetrators, it was found that 30% reported having also stalked their
partners (Burgess et al., 1997). In addition it has been found that between 30% and 65% of stalkers had
engaged in violence towards the intimate partners that they had more recently stalked (e.g. Kienlen,
Birmingham, Solberg, O’Regan, & Meloy, 1997).

• It enables the perpetrator to draw upon a wider range of stalking tactics that are influenced by their
intimate knowledge of the victim, in particular their knowledge of specific fears, concerns and
vulnerabilities (Mohandie, Meloy, McGowan, & Williams, 2006; Sheridan & Davies, 2001).
Risk Factors And Theories
Examples of risk factors associated with male perpetration of intimate partner violence and stalking
• Feminist or gendered theories have to date been most influential in accounting for IPV, despite
the fact that little empirical support currently exists for this position. This perspective views IPV
as predominantly acted out by men toward their female partner, caused by societal rules that
support male dominance and female subordination (Dobash & Dobash, 1979; Yllö, 2005). Hence,
“patriarchy’” is viewed as a direct cause of men’s violence toward their female partner (Bell &
Naugle, 2008).

• An equally popular theory that has been applied to understanding IPV is social learning theory
(SLT, Bandura, 1977). According to SLT, violent and abusive behaviours and pro-violence beliefs
are learned during childhood through either the direct experience or observation of these
behaviours and attitudes modelled by others, most typically parents.

• It has been theorised by Dutton (1995, 1998, 1999) that adult IPV reflects insecure attachment
styles (dismissive, preoccupied, fearful) developed during childhood, and is associated with
abandonment anxiety and anger. Indeed, there is evidence that IPV men are more likely to be
characterised by insecure than secure attachment styles (e.g. Dutton, Saunders, Starzomski, &
Bartholomew, 1994).
Subtypes Of Perpetrators

Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration

HOLTZWORTH-MUNROE AND STUART IPV SUBTYPES

• The generally violent/antisocial perpetrator - They have the highest levels of exposure to
violence in their childhood; extensive involvement with deviant peers; high impulsivity,
substance abuse, criminality, antisocial personality and narcissism; negative attitudes toward
woman; attitudes supportive of violence in general; lack conflict resolution skills in a wide
variety of situations; and have a dismissive attachment style.

• The dysphoric/borderline perpetrator- They will most probably have experienced some
family violence in childhood and involvement with deviant peers; demonstrate the highest
levels of psychological distress, emotional volatility, depression and anger; hold moderate
attitudes supportive of violence and hostility to women; display low-moderate levels of
empathy, criminality and substance abuse; moderate impulsivity; and low marital
communication skills.
Subtypes Of Perpetrators

Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration

HOLTZWORTH-MUNROE AND STUART IPV SUBTYPES

• The family-only perpetrator - violent to family members and acts out

with low severity and frequency. He demonstrates the least criminal
behaviour and psychopathology and evidences similar risk to nonviolent
men. Their violence is likely to result from a accumulation of low level risk
factors such as some exposure to family violence in childhood, poor
communication skills with their partner; mild impulsivity; dependency on
their partner, alcohol and drug abuse.
Stalking Perpetration
ZONA, PALAREA, AND LANE (1998) STALKING TYPOLOGY

• Erotomanic stalking is conducted by individuals who hold the delusional

belief that the victim, who is unattainable to them, loves them.

• Simple obsessional stalking typically arises either from an intimate

relationship or from an acquaintance known through work or professional
setting.

• Love-obsessional stalking occurs when the target is known to the stalker

but there is no previous intimate relationship between them.
THANK YOU!  HAPPY SUNDAY