Criminal Profiling Basics: TV Drama vs. Real Life
If you are a big fan of the tv show. Criminal mindsyou would know that the characters are experts in “outlining” the unsubor unknown subject, who is suspected of a crime.
criminal profiles it is a high-profile investigative method. People are amazed and see news on TV about it, like bodies of evidence. There are TV detective dramas like CSI gold Criminal minds built around it. Criminal profiling uses crime scene evidence along with other psychological information to indicate the type of person most likely to have committed the criminal act under investigation.
What is the difference between TV drama and real life crime profiles?
tv drama profiles
As depicted in the media, film, and television, detectives are cops who work on hunches, while “profilers” are cops whose hunches are kicked up a notch by a conglomeration of geeky science and psychic insights. They show up at the scene of the crime, put on their rubber gloves, go through the evidence, survey the entire scene, make faces, then blurt out, “The perpetrator is a black male, early 30’s, with black hair, brown hair. eyes, and eats pizza regularly. Let’s get this guy.”
Many times on television, the “who did it” mystery is solved about ten minutes before the end of the show, as seen on CSI
real life profiles
Unlike TV drama profiling, real life criminal profiling involves painstaking detective work. It always begins with an analysis of the physical evidence found at individual crime scenes. Through the use of deductive reasoning, the reasoning involved in using specific physical facts to arrive at generalizations, the criminal profiler begins to develop the tendencies and typologies that are characteristic of different types of perpetrators.
It is only after careful study of many crime scenes that the veteran criminal profiler can confidently attempt to reconstruct the offender’s behavior at a particular scene. Based on this reconstruction, the profilers can reach conclusions about the motive for the crime.
No reputable criminal profiler still believes in the old method of operation (MO) definition that a particular type of criminal act is always and inevitably the result of the same motive. On the other hand, it can be assumed that various motives can result in a particular type of behavior. Suppose a crime scene investigator comes across a blindfolded body. This could indicate that the offender may have known the victim and did not want to be identified.
Many times, criminal profiling can result in narrowing down a long list of suspects. Although this is not an exact science, it is an invaluable tool because it allows law enforcement agencies to more effectively focus their limited resources. For example, if the offender is most likely to possess qualities A, B, and C, profilers do not have to look for perpetrators who possess characteristics outside of these qualities.
next time you look CSI gold Criminal mindsYou will have a better understanding of what criminal profiling is all about in real life compared to profiling in TV dramas.