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Criminal Personality Profiling: An Outcome and Process Study

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Anthony J. Pinizzotto
Anthony J. Pinizzotto
Anthony J. Pinizzotto
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Norman J. Finkel
Norman J. Finkel
Norman J. Finkel
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Abstract

Examined outcome and process differences in criminal personality profiling among 4 profilers (PFs), 12 detectives, 6 psychologists, and 6 undergraduates, using closed police cases (1 sex offense, 1 homicide). In the written profile task (the task that is more representative of what PFs actually do), PFs wrote more detailed and valid profiles than other Ss for both cases. An analysis of correct responses concerning the known sex offender for the sex offense case revealed that PFs scored significantly better than other Ss on a variety of measures; similar results were not revealed for the homicide case. PFs did not appear to process this material in a way qualitatively different from other Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)
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Law and Human Behavior, Vol. 14, No. 3, 1990
Criminal Personality Profiling
An Outcome and Process Study*
Anthony J. Pinizzottot and Norman J. Finkelt
In this work we examine outcome and process differences in criminal personality profding among
groups of profilers, detectives, psychologists, and students, using closed police cases--one sex offense
and one homicide. Two major questions guide this research: (1) Are professional profilers more
accurate than nonprofilers in generating personality profiles and correctly identifying offender features
from crime scene details? and (2) Is the process that the profilers use qualitatively different from that
cff the nonprofilers? In the written profile task, the task that is most representative of what profilers
actually do, profilers write richer, more detailed, and more valid profiles than the nonprofilers for both
the sex offense case and homicide case. An analysis of correct responses concerning the known
offender for the sex offense case revealed that the profilers scored significantly better than the other
three groups in a variety of measures; similar results were not revealed for the homicide case. Pro-
fliers, however, do not appear to process this material in a way qualitatively different from any other
group.
Criminal personality profiling--formerly
the stock-in-trade of whodunit writers,
'whose fictional detectives transformed crime scene facts into a portrait of the
perpetrator--has itself been transformed in the last 20 years from fiction to fact.
As the use of criminal personality profiling increases, empirical questions con-
* This article is based in part on the doctoral dissertation of the first author. We gratefully acknowl-
edge the suggestions and comments of John Monahan, Bruce Sales, Daniel Robinson, Darlene
Howard, and James Lamiell. A special note of gratitude is given to those law enforcement agencies
and individuals who participated in this study but need to remain anonymous; without their partic-
ipation, this research could not have been completed. A note of thanks is given also to SSA Roger
Depue and SSA Roy Hazelwood of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for their valued assistance.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Anthony J. Pinizzotto, Department of Psychology, George-
town University, Washington, D.C., 20057.
t Georgetown University.
215
0147-7307/90/0600-0215506.00/0 9 1990 Plenum Publishing Corporation
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
... Várias explicações saltam à vista dos autores do estudo, sendo que são de destacar duas delas: a primeira centra-se no facto do caso do homicídio ter menos informações para analisar, incluindo um estudo menos aprofundado da vítima (por, obviamente, já não poder fornecer declarações) em relação ao crime sexual, onde a vítima sobrevivente pode ter informações preciosas sobre o ofensor; a segunda consiste na metodologia utilizada no estudo (questionário de escolha múltipla), fornecendo aos "não-profilers" várias sugestões sobre as respostas possíveis ou o caminho a seguir para chegar a alguma informação que, sem essa preciosa ajuda, dificilmente lá chegariam (Pinizzotto & Finkel, 1990;Kocsis & Palermo, 2006). ...
... É crucial a imposição de barreiras e filtros para o "mundo real" quando se mergulha no estudo de uma técnica tão cativante como a do profiling criminal.Muitas vezes publicitada nos media (através de séries televisivas, livros e filmes de ficção policial) como uma ciência exata, profundamente romantizada e infalível, esta técnica representa bem mais do que uma previsão quase instantânea sobre o autor de um crime.Como referido anteriormente, um dos maiores focos de debate no seio da investigação criminal, ao nível global, é exatamente o da validade dos perfis psicológicos de possíveis ofensores. Ainda que não seja possível medir o grau de legitimidade empregue a esta técnica, podemos assumir um crescimento muito grande no número de estudos sobre a mesma, principalmente nos últimos 20 anos (e.g.Pinizzotto & Finkel, 1990;Copson G. , 1995;Woodworth & Porter, 1999;Montet, 2002; Kocsis, 2003; Kocsis, 2006; Kocsis & Palermo, 2006;Torres, Boccaccini, & Miller, 2006;Snook, Haines, Taylor, & Bennell, 2007; Snook, Cullen, Bennell, Taylor, & Gendreau, 2008;Bourque, LeBlanc, Utzschneider, & Wright, 2009;Fujita, et al., 2013; Konvalina-Simas, 2014; Kocsis & Palermo, 2016; entre outros...). Apesar de todos a abordarem, muito poucos se debruçam verdadeiramente sobre uma presumível verificação da validade(Ribeiro & Soeiro, 2021). ...
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