Geographic profiling

Last updated

Geographic profiling is a criminal investigative methodology that analyzes the locations of a connected series of crimes to determine the most probable area of offender residence. By incorporating both qualitative and quantitative methods, it assists in understanding spatial behaviour of an offender and focusing the investigation to a smaller area of the community. Typically used in cases of serial murder or rape (but also arson, bombing, robbery, terrorism [1] and other crimes), the technique helps police detectives prioritize information in large-scale major crime investigations that often involve hundreds or thousands of suspects and tips.

Contents

In addition to determining the offender's most likely area of residence, an understanding of the spatial pattern of a crime series and the characteristics of the crime sites can tell investigators other useful information, such as whether the crime was opportunistic and the degree of offender familiarity with the crime location. This is based on the connection between an offender's behavior and his or her non-criminal life. [2]

Geographic profiling is growing in popularity and, combined with offender profiling, can be a helpful tool in the investigation of serial crime.

Development

While the use of spatial analysis methods in police investigations goes back many years (e.g. detectives gathered around a large city map with pins stuck in it), the formalized process known today as geographic profiling originated out of research conducted at Simon Fraser University's School of Criminology in British Columbia, Canada, in 1989. [3]

Geographic profiling is based on the assumption that offenders tend to select victims and commit crimes near their homes. The technique has now spread to several US, Canadian, British, and other European law enforcement agencies. Originally designed for violent crime investigations, it is increasingly being used on property crime.

Through numerous research studies, more importance has been placed on the journeys offenders habitually make to determine the spatial range of criminal activity. Because of their familiarity, these areas become a comfort zone within which offenders prefer to commit crimes. Consequently, criminal acts follow a distance-decay function, whereby people are more likely to commit offences near their homes. An exception to this is a buffer zone around offenders' homes, within which they avoid committing crimes in case they are identified by a neighbour. [4]

Central concepts

The theoretical foundation of geographic profiling is in environmental criminology. [5] Key concepts include:

Supports the notion that crimes are likely to occur closer to an offender’s home and follow a distance-decay function (DDF) with crimes less likely to occur the further away an offender is from their home base. It is concerned with the ‘distance of crime’ and that offenders will in general travel limited distances to commit their crimes.
Originally developed by Cohen and Felson (1979), the primary principle is that the offender and victim must intersect in time and space for a crime to occur. This approach focuses on the concept that crime occurs when an opportunity is taken within both parties’ non-criminal spatial activity. An activity space may consist of the regular areas an offender travels such as work, school, home or recreational areas.
Concepts relating to the explanation of spatial behaviour include the least-effort principle where offenders are more likely to act on the first or opportunity and the idea of a buffer zone. It exhibits a constant tension between the offender’s desire to divert attention from his home base and the desire to travel no further than necessary to commit crimes.
Developed by Canadian environmental criminologists Paul and Patricia Brantingham, the theory exerts the strongest influence in geographic profiling. It suggests that crime sites and opportunities are not random. There is an emphasis in the interaction between the offender’s mental map of spatial surroundings and the allotment of victims (target backcloth).

Serial crimes are the easiest to develop geographic profiles for, since each crime contains new spatial information and provides additional data including the fact that the crime area tends to enlarge with an increase of comfort and confidence. The initial hunt and criminal acts are likely to occur close to the offender's home or workplace. As the success rate increases, the criminal's growing confidence will lead him/her to seek his prey further from home. Crimes that are suitable for analysis are those that are predatory and involve some spatial decision-making process such as the area for hunting targets, travel routes, mode of transportation and even body dump sites. [6]

Another leading researcher in this area is David Canter whose approach to geographic profiling is based on the circle theory of environmental range. In 1993, Canter and Larkin developed two models of offender behaviour: the marauder and commuter models. [7] The distinction is that marauders operate close to the offender's home while commuters commit crimes far outside the habitual zone. It hopes to differentiate the two types of serial offenders by studying the relationship of the criminal spatial behaviour with the offender's place of residence. [8]

Considerations

In developing a geographic profile, there are important factors to consider: [9]

A crime will contain evidence. The evidence found at the location provides information leading to the offender and victim's prior location, clues as to where they may have gone, as well as information depicting what happened. Collecting and comparing clues from numerous crime locations influences the development of the offender's patterns.

According to Dr. Kim Rossmo there are four different types of offenders with regard to geographic profiling. Hunter: the hunter singles out a specific victim without leaving his home territory. He will commit crimes where he lives. Poacher: a poacher will travel out of his home territory to do his hunting. Troller: A troller will realize an opportunistic encounter while occupied in other activities and then strike. Trapper: a trapper will draw the victim into him using different seemingly harmless situations.

Hunting process can be broken down into two parts. (1) The search for a suitable victim, and (2) the method of attack.

“Target or victim backcloth is important for an understanding of the geometric arrangement of crime sites; it is the equivalent of the spatial opportunity structure (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1993b). It is configured by both geographic and temporal distribution of “suitable” (as seen from the offenders perspective) crime targets or victims across the physical landscape. The availability of particular targets may vary significantly according to neighborhood, area, or even city, and is influenced by time, day of week, and season; hence, the term structural backcloth is also used.” [10]

Large roads and highways play a huge part in crime strictly because it how both criminals and victims are forced to travel. Crimes will often cluster around freeway exits and entrances.

These are two forms of rapid transportation that may also be used by offenders and victims and can be hot spots in certain areas.

Offender and victim alike are both restrained by physical boundaries such as rivers, lakes, oceans or highways. Psychological boundaries may also affect movement, for example a black offender may not travel into a white neighborhood for fear or being identified.

Certain offenders prefer a certain ethnicity of victim, if so then he may hunt in different neighborhoods affecting spatial crime patterns.

Understanding the routine of a victim may provide insight into how the offender searches for his victims.

Incorporating these factors in a profile can lead to a geographic pattern where it sheds light on an offender's mobility, method of transportation, ability to navigate boundaries and most importantly, the possible residential location. It is important to recognize such spatial intentionality, to determine the offender's comfort zone and their desire to commit crimes in locations where they feel a sense of familiarity. However, the reality may be more complex since an offender may have multiple spatial anchor points, such as home, workplace or the residence of their significant other. [11]

Tools

Geographic profiling is an investigative tool that can be seen as a strategic information management system to assist police with the large volume of information throughout an investigation. It concentrates its focus on the geographic aspects of the crime and was developed in response to the demands of solving serial crimes. [12] In response, Rossmo developed a computerized geographic profiling algorithm called criminal geographic targeting (CGT) [13] which assess the spatial characteristics of crimes. It analyzes the geographic coordinates of the offender's crimes and produces a color map which assigns probabilities to different points for the most likely area of the offender's home base. CGT has been patented [14] and integrated into a specialized crime analysis software product called Rigel. The Rigel product is developed by the software company Environmental Criminology Research Inc. (ECRI), which Rossmo co-founded. [15]

Geographic Profilers often employ tools such as Rigel, CrimeStat or Gemini to perform geographic analysis. System inputs are crime location addresses or coordinates, often entered through a geographic information system (GIS). Output is a jeopardy surface (three-dimensional probability surface) or color geoprofile, which depicts the most likely areas of offender residence or search base. These programs assist crime analysts and investigators to focus their resources more effectively by highlighting the crucial geographic areas.

Geographic Profiling Analysis (GPA) training

Geographic profiling is a sub-type of offender or criminal profiling (the inference of offender characteristics from offence characteristics). It is therefore related to psychological or behavioral profiling. If psychological profiling is the "who," geographic profiling is the "where." All certified geographic profilers are members of the International Criminal Investigative Analysis Fellowship (ICIAF), a professional profiling organization first begun by investigators trained by the FBI in the mid-1980s.

A Geographic Profiling Analysis (GPA) training programme has also been created and is governed by the Committee for GPA Training and Certification (CGPATC). [16] The program has been designed so that geographic profiling analysis remains a recognized law enforcement tool; a meaningful certification for crime analysts and detectives; a standard of quality through adequate qualifications in law enforcements is maintained; and finally to establish an ethical code of conduct.

Limitations

Although geographic profiling is a useful tool for assisting investigations, e.g. in prioritizing suspects, like any other models there are certain limitations:

See also

General:

Notes

  1. "Software is helping the search for guerrillas' and terrorists' safe houses and weapons caches". The Economist . 16 January 2016. Retrieved 18 January 2016.
  2. Wortley and Mazerolle 2008, p. 136.
  3. Harries, Keith (December 1999). "Geographic profiling". Mapping Crime: Principle and Practice. National Institute of Justice. Retrieved 2011-03-14.
  4. Hicks and Sales 2006, p. 221.
  5. Wortley and Mazerolle 2008, p. 137-138.
  6. Holmes and Holmes 1996, p. 155.
  7. Canter, D., & Larkin, P. (1993). The environmental range of serial rapists. Journal of Environmental Psychology, V. 13, pp. 63–69.
  8. Meaney 2004
  9. Wortley and Mazerolle 2008, p. 143.
  10. pg. 127. Geographic Profiling by Dr. Kim Rossmo
  11. Lersch 2007, p. 250.
  12. Wortley and Mazerolle 2008, p. 136.
  13. Rossmo, D. Kim. "Place, Space, and Police Investigations: Hunting Serial Violent Criminals". Simon Fraser University. Retrieved 2011-10-28.
  14. Rossmo, D. K. (1996). U.S. Patent No. 5,781,704. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
  15. Rich, T. and Shively, M (2004, December). P. 14. A Methodology for Evaluating Geographic Profiling Software. U.S. Department of Justice, Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/208993.pdf
  16. "CGPATC - Committee for Geographic Profiling Analyst Training and Certification".
  17. Laukkanen, M. M. (2007).

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victimology</span> Study of victimization

Victimology is the study of victimization, including the psychological effects on victims, the relationship between victims and offenders, the interactions between victims and the criminal justice system—that is, the police and courts, and corrections officials—and the connections between victims and other social groups and institutions, such as the media, businesses, and social movements.

Criminal psychology, also referred to as criminological psychology, is the study of the views, thoughts, intentions, actions and reactions of criminals and suspects. It is a subfield of criminology and applied psychology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crime mapping</span> Diagram showing crime incident patterns

Crime mapping is used by analysts in law enforcement agencies to map, visualize, and analyze crime incident patterns. It is a key component of crime analysis and the CompStat policing strategy. Mapping crime, using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), allows crime analysts to identify crime hot spots, along with other trends and patterns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Offender profiling</span> Law enforcement investigative technique

Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is an investigative strategy used by law enforcement agencies to identify likely suspects and has been used by investigators to link cases that may have been committed by the same perpetrator. The originator of modern profiling was FBI agent Robert Ressler. He defined profiling as the process of identifying all psychological characteristics of an individual and forming a general description of their personality based on an analysis of crimes they have committed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental criminology</span>

Environmental criminology focuses on criminal patterns within particular built environments and analyzes the impacts of these external variables on people's cognitive behavior. It forms a part of criminology's Positivist School in that it applies the scientific method to examine the society that causes crime.

Serial crimes are crimes of a repetitive nature. Serial murder, serial rape and serial arson are crimes regarded as serial crimes.

The FBI method of profiling is a system created by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) used to detect and classify the major personality and behavioral characteristics of an individual based upon analysis of the crime or crimes the person committed.

Property crime is a category of crime, usually involving private property, that includes, among other crimes, burglary, larceny, theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, shoplifting, and vandalism. Property crime is a crime to obtain money, property, or some other benefit. This may involve force, or the threat of force, in cases like robbery or extortion. Since these crimes are committed in order to enrich the perpetrator they are considered property crimes. Crimes against property are divided into two groups: destroyed property and stolen property. When property is destroyed, it could be called arson or vandalism. Examples of the act of stealing property is robbery or embezzlement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Behavioral Science Unit</span> Division within the US Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) is the original name of a unit within the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Training Division at Quantico, Virginia, formed in response to the rise of sexual assault and homicide in the 1970s. The unit was usurped by the Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) and renamed the Behavioral Research and Instruction Unit (BRIU) and currently is called the Behavioral Analysis Unit (5) (BAU-5) within the National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC). The BAU-5 currently works on developing research and then using the evidence-based results to provide training and improve consultation in the behavioral sciences—understanding who criminals are, how they think, why they do what they do—for the FBI and law enforcement communities.

A serial rapist is someone who commits multiple rapes, whether with multiple victims or a single victim repeatedly over a period of time. Some serial rapists target children. The terms sexual predator, repeat rape and multiple offending can also be used to describe the activities of those who commit a number of consecutive rapes, but remain unprosecuted when self-reported in research. Others will commit their assaults in prisons.

Rossmo's formula is a geographic profiling formula to predict where a serial criminal lives. It relies upon the tendency of criminals to not commit crimes near places where they might be recognized, but also to not travel excessively long distances. The formula was developed and patented in 1996 by criminologist Kim Rossmo and integrated into a specialized crime analysis software product called Rigel. The Rigel product is developed by the software company Environmental Criminology Research Inc. (ECRI), which Rossmo co-founded.

Kim Rossmo is a Canadian criminologist specializing in geographic profiling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CrimeStat</span>

CrimeStat is a crime mapping software program. CrimeStat is Windows-based program that conducts spatial and statistical analysis and is designed to interface with a geographic information system (GIS). The program is developed by Ned Levine & Associates under the direction of Ned Levine, with funding by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), an agency of the United States Department of Justice. The program and manual are distributed for free by NIJ.

In criminology, Mobility triangles are the triangular areas formed by the locations of the victim's home, the offender's home and the crime. They are used to describe spatial patterns of crimes, and to facilitate the classification of crimes based on location. Implicit in the concept is the assumption that the homes of the victim and the offender form anchor points that govern the crime location. Mobility triangles are related to the criminological frameworks of routine activity theory and environmental criminology.

Studies have been made of the "hunting patterns" of serial offenders, mainly serial killers and those committing repeated sex crimes. Such patterns constitute the interaction of time, space, and activity of a serial offender's criminal behavior. The attempt is made to ascribe rational motives to the offender's choice of places and times; investigators may invoke routine activity theory and rational choice theory in relation to the location of crimes.

The idea of regulatory crime control is to reduce and control crime. Many factors can make a place or area a victim of criminal activity. John and Emily Eck, two primary scholars that work within the area of regulatory crime control, explain how places can either create crime opportunities or crime barriers (2012). Eck also defines the two types of regulatory crime control strategies as ends-based and means-based. He states that means-based strategies focus on the use of different procedures and technologies, while ends-based strategies concentrate on the overall outcome (2012). Another primary scholar, Graham Farrell, discusses how repeat victimisation is becoming an important area for policing and crime control.

Crime displacement is the relocation of crime as a result of police crime-prevention efforts. Crime displacement has been linked to problem-oriented policing, but it may occur at other levels and for other reasons. Community-development efforts may be a reason why criminals move to other areas for their criminal activity. The idea behind displacement is that when motivated criminal offenders are deterred, they will commit crimes elsewhere. Geographic police initiatives include assigning police officers to specific districts so they become familiar with residents and their problems, creating a bond between law-enforcement agencies and the community. These initiatives complement crime displacement, and are a form of crime prevention. Experts in the area of crime displacement include Kate Bowers, Rob T. Guerette, and John E. Eck.

Crime pattern theory is a way of explaining why people commit crimes in certain areas.

Social network analysis in criminology views social relationships in terms of network theory, consisting of nodes and ties. These networks are often depicted in a social network diagram, where nodes are represented as vertices and ties are represented as edges.

Environmental Criminology Research Inc. (ECRI) is a crime analysis software company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The company develops tools for police, military and security use. ECRI pioneered the use of geographic profiling software for serial crime analysis.

References

Washington, DC: American Psychological Association