Good Criminal Profiling Begins with Good Witness

We love to watch the History and Discovery Channel’s on our television. Many times the shows are not only entertaining, they are educational. Learning about the suspects patterns and the way things used to be and how the detective analysis behaviors. One of the most interesting things I have seen recently was a show about criminal profiling. It made me realize my powers of observation are not what they should be.

There are those in law enforcement that do criminal investigation for a living. These people do a remarkable job of investigating what type of suspect or suspects may be committing a certain crime. There are many different kinds of crimes that require criminal profiling, but one of the most common is homicide. Some of the most famous types of killers, such as serial killers, have been caught because of good detective work and good witness recalls the suspects and the victim or vitims. When you are a witness to a crime, it is important to recall every detail you possibly can, however, many times people can’t do this because of the fear factor.

Many times good criminal profiling begins with a good witness. This means those that witnessed the crime must be able to give some sort description to the profiler. This description should be physical. The physical description is not the only thing that goes into crime scene. Then the homicide detective must also consider how the crime was committed, and if there have been other similar crimes that may be related. If there have been similar crimes in the area with a similar MO, then they can try to tie the crimes together.

Criminal profiling is more to do with how the criminal operates rather than what they look like, though both pieces of information are very important. Many times good criminal profiling can narrow down gender, habits, and many personality traits that may otherwise be unknown. Many times after a criminal is caught much of the credit can go towards good criminal profiling. It’s not an exact science, but most of the time it is more useful than you may think. It is also usually surprisingly accurate.