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Federal Bureau of Investigation
Common name	Federal Bureau of Investigation
Abbreviation	FBI
Seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
agency information Motto Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity Agency overview Formed July 26, 1908 (1908-07-26) (103 years ago) Employees 35,664[1] (February 29, 2012) Annual budget 7.9 billion USD (2011)[1] Legal personality Governmental: Government agency Jurisdictional structure Federal agency (Operations jurisdiction) United States Legal jurisdiction As per operations jurisdiction. Governing body United States Department of Justice Constituting instrument United States Code Title 28 Part II Chapter 33 General nature Federal law enforcement Civilian agency Operational structure Headquarters J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, D.C. Sworn members 13,963 (May 31, 2011)[1] Unsworn members 21,474 (May 31, 2011)[1] Agency executives Robert S. Mueller III, Director Sean M. Joyce, Deputy Director List of FBI Directors, Other directors Child agencies FBI Academy FBI Laboratory Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) Counterterrorism Division (CTD) FBI Police (FBIP) Major units 5 Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) Law Enforcement Bulletin Unit (LEBU) Hostage Rescue Team (FBI) (HRT) Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) FBI Police National Security Branch (NSB) Field offices 56 (List of FBI Field Offices) Notables People John Edgar Hoover, Director, for being the founding director William Mark Felt, former Federal Agent, for whistle blowing, Watergate scandal Joseph Leo Gormley, Forensic Scientist, for expert testimony Significant Operations COINTELPRO Special Intelligence Service Website www.FBI.gov view talk edit this information

The FBI method of profiling is a system created by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is 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.^{[2] [3]} One of the first American profilers was FBI agent John E. Douglas, who was also instrumental in developing the behavioral science method of law enforcement.^[4]

Profiling phases[link]

1. The process this approach uses to determine offender characteristics involves, first, an assimilation phase where all information available in regard to the crime scene, victim, and witnesses is examined.^[5] This may include photographs of the crime scene, autopsy reports, victim profiles, police reports, and witness statements.
2. The next phase, the "classification stage", involves integrating the information collected into a framework which essentially classifies the murderer as "organized" or "disorganized". Organized murderers are thought to have advanced social skills, plan their crimes, display control over the victim using social skills, leave little forensic evidence or clues, and often engage in sexual acts with the victim before the murder.^[6] In contrast, the disorganized offender is described as impulsive, with few social skills, such that his/her murders are opportunistic and crime scenes suggest frenzied, haphazard behavior and a lack of planning or attempts to avoid detection. They might engage in sexual acts after the murder, because they lack knowledge of normal sexual behavior.^[7]
3. Following the classification stage profilers attempt to reconstruct the behavioral sequence of the crime, in particular, attempting to reconstruct the offender's modus operandi or method of committing the crime.^[8]
4. Profilers also examine closely the offender's “signature” which is identifiable from the crime scene and is more idiosyncratic than the modus operandi—the signature is what the offender does to satisfy his psychological needs in committing the crime.^[9]
5. From further consideration of the modus operandi, the offender's signature at the crime scene, and also an inspection for the presence of any staging of the crime, the profiler moves on to generate a profile. This profile may contain detailed information regarding the offender's demographic characteristics, family characteristics, military background, education, personality characteristics, and it may also suggest appropriate interview techniques.^[8]

Criticism[link]

To profile serial murderers, it is first necessary to link crimes to a type of common offender. To accomplish this, the offender is determined based on classes of action committed at the crime scene.^[10] This classification should be reliable and empirically tested in order to assign cases to one group. The classification system should also meet the assumptions of a typology^{[disambiguation needed ]}. To specify the characteristics that define a typology which must occur together frequently, and the characteristics specific to one type must not occur frequently with the characteristics specific to another type.^[10]

Much criticism surrounding the FBI process of profiling focuses on the validity of the classification stage. In particular, the criticism targets the organized vs. disorganized dichotomy and its theoretical and empirical foundations and assumptions.^[11] This dichotomy has become a commonly cited and used classifications of violent, serial offenders.^[7] The only available study that examines the reliability of the classification system involved the reading of a sexual-homicide case summary. In this study, interrater reliability was found to be between 51.7% and 92.6%.

This study, although dated, does provide limited support for the reliability of the FBI sexual-homicide classification system. However, this form of reliability contributes little to the usefulness of the offender profiling system if the classification is not effective. The FBI classification system is derived from a single interview-based research study with a small sample of apprehended serial killers who operated in North America.^[12][13]

The ecological validity of the FBI's classification system considering its limitations has also been criticised. Further limitations of the original study include the subject selection process that relied on non-random self-selection, and the extensive use of potentially biased data.^[14] The interviews were unstructured and led in an ad hoc fashion that was dependent on the interviewees.^[15] The process whereby participants were divided into groups based on organized or disorganized characteristics and behaviors has been described as the product of circular reasoning, involving the “reification of a concept” in contrast to an empirical validation of this concept.

The organized/disorganized dichotomy is further flawed in that it fails to meet the criteria of a typology .^[10] David Canter examined the relationship between the behavioral styles and background characteristics of 100 serial-homicide offenders using a multidimensional scaling (MDS) procedure called smallest-space analysis (SSA) that statistically represents the co-occurrence of variables. No evidence was found to support the co-occurrence of behavioral styles or background characteristics related to the organized/disorganized taxonomy as proposed in the Crime Classification Manual (CCM).

See also[link]

• Forensic psychology
• Offender profiling
• Investigative psychology

Notes[link]

1. ^ ^{a b c d} "Quick Facts". Federal Bureau of Investigation. http://www.fbi.gov/quickfacts.htm. Retrieved 2012-03-03. 
2. ^ Douglas, Ressler, Burgess & Hartman, 1986
3. ^ Turvey, 1999
4. ^ http://www.johndouglasmindhunter.com/bio.php
5. ^ Jackson & Beckerian, 1997
6. ^ Douglas et al., 1986; Jackson et al., 1997
7. ^ ^{a b} Woodworth & Porter, 2002
8. ^ ^{a b} Jackson et al., 1997
9. ^ Woodworth et al., 2002
10. ^ ^{a b c} Canter, D. (2004). Offender Profiling and Investigative Psychology. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 1: 1–15.
11. ^ Alison, L., Bennell, C., Mokros, A., & Ormerod, D. (2002). The Personality Paradox in Offender Profiling: A Theoretical Review of the Processes Involved in Deriving Background Characteristics From Crime Scene Actions. Psychology, Public Policy, and the Law, 8(1): 115–135.
12. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation. (1985, August). The Men Who Murdered. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 2-31. As cited in Beasley, J.O. (2004). Serial Murder in America: Case Studies of Seven Offenders. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 22: 395–414.
13. ^ Turvey, B.E. (1999). Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioural Evidence Analysis. San Diego: Academic.
14. ^ Beasley, J.O. (2004). Serial Murder in America: Case Studies of Seven Offenders. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 22: 395–414.
15. ^ Canter, D., Alison, L.J., Alison, E., & Wentink, N. (2004). The Organized/ Disorganized Typology of Serial Murder: Myth or Model? Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 10(3): 293–320.

References[link]

Douglas, J.E., Ressler, R.K., Burgess, A.W., & Hartman, C.R.(1986). Criminal profiling from crime scene analysis. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 4: 401–421.

Jackson, J.L., & Bekerian, D.A. (1997). Offender profiling: research, theory, and practice. Chicester: Wiley.

Turvey, B.E. (1999). Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioural Evidence Analysis. San Diego: Academic.

Woodworth, M., & Porter, S. (2001). Historical Foundations and Current Applications of Criminal Profiling in Violent Crime Investigations. Expert Evidence, 7: 241–261.

External links[link]

• http://www.all-about-forensic-psychology.com/offender-profiling.html

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (September 2008)

Robert K. Ressler (born 15 February 1937 in Chicago) is a former FBI agent and author. He played a significant role in the psychological profiling of violent offenders in the 1970s and is often credited with coining the English term "serial killer".

He served in the U.S. Army before joining the FBI in 1970. Ressler was recruited into the Behavioral Science Unit that deals with drawing up psychological profiles of violent offenders who typically select victims at random, such as rapists and serial killers.

In the early 1980s, Ressler helped to organize the interviews of thirty-six incarcerated serial killers in order to find parallels between such criminals' backgrounds and motives. He was also instrumental in setting up Vi-CAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program). This consists of a centralized computer database of information on unsolved homicides. Information is gathered from local police forces and cross-referenced with other unsolved killings across the United States. Working on the basis that most serial killers claim similar victims with a standard method (modus operandi) it hopes to spot early on when a killer is carrying out crimes in different jurisdictions. This was primarily a response to the appearance of nomadic killers who committed crimes in different areas. So long as the killer kept on the move, the police forces in each state would be unaware that there were multiple victims and would just be investigating a single homicide each, unaware that other police forces had similar crimes. Vi-CAP would help individual police forces determine if they were hunting for the same perpetrator so that they could share and correlate information with one another, increasing their chances of identifying a suspect.

He worked on many cases of serial homicide such as Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Chase.

Ressler retired from the FBI in 1990 and is the author of a number of books about serial murder. He is active giving lectures to students and police forces on the subject of criminology, and in 1993 was brought in to London to assist in the investigation into the murders committed by Colin Ireland.

Ressler's visit to Ciudad Juárez (in Mexico) to investigate the still-active femicides occurring there served as inspiration for the character Albert Kessler in Roberto Bolaño's novel 2666.^[1]

Books by Robert Ressler[link]

• Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives (with Ann W. Burgess, John E. Douglas, Ann Wolbert Burgess) (1988)
• Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI (1992)
• Justice Is Served (with Tom Shachtman) (1994)
• I Have Lived In the Monster (1998)

See also[link]

Biography portal

• Crime Classification Manual
• FBI Method of Profiling
• Forensic psychology
• Investigative psychology
• Offender profiling
• John E. Douglas

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Robert Ressler's official site
• Article on Ressler at the Crime Library
• Robert K Ressler interview at www.sci-fi-online.com