Serial Killer Profiler Accuracy Tested
"Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters" a new history of serial homicide by Peter Vronsky just published by Penguin books, reports on recent studies that tested the qualifications and accuracy of criminal profilers.
(PRWEB) December 10, 2004 -- "Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of
Monsters" a new history of serial murder by Peter Vronsky, describes research
conducted by a university in Australia to empirically test the best
qualifications for profilers of serial killers. (See www.petervronsky.com)
Groups of police officers,
professional profilers (forensic psychologists with a history of being retained
by police departments), ordinary psychologists, claimed psychics, and untrained
economics and science college students, were all asked to profile an
unidentified offender based on crime scene information from a previously solved
case. The details of the offender’s identity and characteristics were obviously
not disclosed to the test subjects.
As expected, professional profilers
and psychologists scored best in accurately describing the characteristics of
the unknown offender. But surprisingly, the next highest scores were achieved by
the untrained college students, followed by police officers and psychics last.
Because the FBI asserts that investigative experience is the highest
qualification that successful profilers can bring to the job, a second
experiment was run to test the value of policing experience on the skills and
abilities of profilers.
The test subjects this time consisted of 31
senior detectives with a minimum of ten years experience; 12 seasoned homicide
investigators; 19 trainee detectives with a minimum of ten years of general
police duties; 50 police academy recruits with less than six weeks of training;
50 recruits with less than three weeks training; and 31 untrained sophomore
chemistry students. The results were astonishing, reports
Vronsky.
Untrained sophomore chemistry students outperformed all the
police groups across the board in producing the most accurate profiles. Among
the police officers, police recruits scored higher than experienced homicide
detectives and outperformed the other police groups.
These results seem
to contradict the FBI’s assertion that investigative experience is the highest
qualification for effective profilers.
Vronsky reports that researchers
suggest that paradoxically, the more experience an investigator has, the more
that experience gets in the way of interpreting data for the purpose of
profiling. Investigators develop over the years a set of commonsense
“heuristics”-impressions about criminals and crime that are based not
necessarily on fact but on their own subjective experience and perceptions.
College students and police recruits with no such prejudicial experience and a
more open mind, can produce more accurate profiles than experienced police
officers.
These tests are not conclusive, Vronsky warns. Formal education
might also be a factor behind the effectiveness of a profiler, and the low
scores from senior police officers might reflect the lower educational
qualifications of police recruits in the past when those officers joined the
force. Vronsky reminds us that many FBI profilers hold M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in
behavioral sciences, which may account for the FBI’s reputation for effective
profiling.
"Serial Killers: The Method and
Madness of Monsters" is a 430-page book covering the historical, cultural,
psychological and investigative aspects of serial homicide and includes a
chapter on the history of profiling and recent developments and advances in the
technique.
Peter Vronsky is currently completing his doctorate in history
at the University of Toronto and is a former international investigative
documentary producer.
For more information or to contact the author: www.petervronsky.com
Serial Killers: The Method and
Madness of Monsters
Peter Vronsky
New York: Berkley Publishing Group,
2004.
432 Pages, Illustrated
ISBN: 0425196402
# # #
Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/12/prweb187427.htm