The Relevance of Victimology to Criminal Profiling

Criminal profiling is a tool utilized by law enforcement during the investigative process, to
reduce the investigative workload. It allows law enforcement to narrow the “rogue gallery” of
possibility perpetrator by developing a hypostasis about the perpetrator. This educated guess is a result
of a behavioral profile developed for the perpetrator through retro-classification or a “reverse-
engineering” process concerning the actions (Modes Operandi) of the perpetrator. (Turvey, 2008) In
practice, criminal profiling is usually only supplied by law enforcement with crime scene modes operandi
and signatures to develop a profile. What is usually missing from and perhaps most important for a
complete profile is the victimology to explain “why” was the victim targeted? (Burgess, 2010)

Forensic victimology is the scientific study of victims for the purpose of addressing investigative and
forensic issues. It has been especially useful to criminal profilers in analyzing crimes scenes for the
purpose of identifying the offender profile characteristics. (Turvey, 2008) The victim (S) may possess a
trait, characteristic, locality, or even social accessibility that allows conclusions to be added to the
criminal profile. What links these “victims” to each other lends itself to explain the similarity or common
trait that selected them in the perpetrator’s mind as a target (victim).

Victimology, like the larger picture of the criminal behavioral profiling it supports, is intensive and
analytical. It is hit and miss, sometimes effective and other times not. At the end of the day it is a guess,
either based on inductive and /or deductive processes.

As modernization develops, an increasing use of computers may be hailed as a leap forward in the
process. I feel that although technology can assist very effectively in categorizing data, it lack the
cognitive analytical side that humans and this “art” not science produces. Facts are facts and data is
data. Humans are more unpredictable than that I feel. Another factor that I feel will limit the use of
computerized profiles is the garbage in garbage out phenomena of the computer sciences – without the
proper data the results will be different and perhaps vague in the arena of behavioral profiling. It will
come down to what the imputer of the data felt was important to enter and how they classified it.

Resources

Burgess, A.W. & Roberts, A.R. (2010) Crime and Victimology. Jones and Bartlett publishers, LLC.

Turvey, B., & Petherick, W. (2008). Forensic Victimology. San Diego, CA: Elsevier Science.