November 7, 2007
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FBI Profiling
Malcolm Gladwell had a cool piece in the New Yorker:
He basically says that FBI profiling is a total joke… the profilers make vague statements, like a psychic would:
A few years ago, [Laurence Alison, ... the author of “The Forensic Psychologist’s Casebook,”] went back to the case of [a] teacher who was murdered on the roof of her building in the Bronx. He wanted to know why, if the F.B.I.’s approach to criminal profiling was based on such simplistic psychology, it continues to have such a sterling reputation. The answer, he suspected, lay in the way the profiles were written, and, sure enough, when he broke down the rooftop-killer analysis, sentence by sentence, he found that it was so full of unverifiable and contradictory and ambiguous language that it could support virtually any interpretation.The article totally bags on the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit (now called the Behavioral Analysis Unit). But if they’re such charlatans, how did Clarice Starling catch Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs?! Nothing makes sense any more.
Comments (23)
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make vague statements like a psychologist would…
well behavioral scientists are just psychologists and psychologists are all wannabe psychics who don’t want to be known as shams.
I think some of the FBI profilers really know their stuff and are good at what they do, but they are probably in the minority. The problem is that when a government agency hires people in that type of field, the ones who do the hiring are totally clueless and easily exploited.
Maybe I missed something, but didn’t lector TELL her that Mr. “It puts lotion on it’s skin” did it? I’ve only seen that movie 9000 times, I thinmk I need to watch it again. I love forensics but I don’ tknow what I think about profiling…
Because clarice was exceptionally sensitive… the crying of the lambs even effected her…
I’m not sure if criminal profiling is the same science applied in Law and Order SVU episodes where they make guesses on the height, age and gender of a murder suspect from the stab wounds on the victim. The detectives will work on these three aspects of the profile they have, but with limited reliance to it. They may even trade one aspect of a profile for another when the situation asks for it.
Interesting article though.
i was thinking about the silence of the lambs thing when i was reading this post. lol.
-ray leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I think criminal profiling is somewhat like criminal sketches. Have you ever matched sketches to the people that they find?
Just a lot of conjecture.
I could write a book on that subject.
I can tell you firsthand that the FBI profiling is severely limited as to its usefulness.
Oh noooo – I am so disillusioned!
THis shoudl be fairly easy to test. Randomly mix a bunch of FBI profiles and actual killers and see if a randomly picked profile is a closer match than the oen generated for the actual crimes, by how much and what’s useless.
I think it might have some sense to it. It has helped the criminal and justice system numerous times before, right?
Although Malcolm Gladwell is my idol. I’ve read The Tipping Point and Blink and I’ve loved them both. He’s pretty good at what he does as a journalist, and I am sure what he wrote on The New Yorker might have some substance.
And I would love to read this article..
Right after this comment, of course!
-Sarah
Clarice was exceptional and bright and had a certain Dr. helping her find her way.
And it was a movie….
One thing I think of is how there is so much pressure on people not to judge others and I’m sure that filters into the FBI and their profiling. But one thing I’ve heard that I believe is, if it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck and looks like a duck…then chances are it’s a duck.
First of all, anything behavioral is not pure science (deep topic).
Also, a huge part of the problem is that the government has not fully shifted from traditional profiling to behavioral profiling and doesn’t fully understand the latter, as it’s culturally, politically, and financially advantageous (and damning) not to do so in many respects.
When you get right down to it, the more the masses are able to spot more reliable red flags of various abusers, including militant fundamentalist terrorists or serial killers, the more we’d be able to spot the logic errors and red flags in politics and the financial realm and that would interfere with the Power Elite.
Just a few thoughts on stuff like this (I have more):
Abuse: Cat Hoarding
Abuse: Fundamentalism and Behavioral Profiling
Abuse & Terrorism: Behavioral Profiling
Behavioral Signs of Potential Child Molesters
In other words, messing with profiling gives much wiggle room for messing with people, hence the “unverifiable and contradictory and ambiguous language that it could support virtually any interpretation.”
Profiling is helpful in many cases yet a joke in others. Both are true.
I wonder how they file and tag that stuff… “Somewhat tall”, “wore black hat”, those sorts of things?
It always works on the crime show Criminal Minds as well.
Well FBI profiling has always seemedlike bullshit tome.
I think a lot of what FBI profilers do has to do with things that aren’t necessarily factual. They may have a good intuition about things (obviously needing very in-tune sense and probably a little bit of evidence, not just everyone else’s “gut” feeling on day to day decision). Of course, being and FBI profiler, they have to write this down in a way that can be convincing – which means they have to turn abstract thoughts into something that seems worth pursuing. That’s probably where all the vague words come in – to help support a description that otherwise has not so much real, tangible support.
macs are wac’d!
paragraph 2paragraph 3huh?