Behavioral Analysis

Behavioral Analysis

Ever since I can remember I have always been interested in the criminal justice system. Through my 23 years of living I have wanted to do many different things within psychology and criminal justice. When I was younger I wanted to be a police officer. After interning at a local police department, I decided that was not for me. I am very thankful for what they do but I just don't want to put my life on the line every day. So, then I decided I wanted to become a lawyer. That way I am not out first hand dealing with the bad guys I am prosecuting them, keeping them off the streets. It seemed much safer to me. After researching Law school I decided that was not for me. I did not want to give up my life for school. Within the last few years I decided I wanted to do something in psychology, but was not quite sure exactly what I wanted to do. I did some research and took some classes in psychology. I thought I would like to work in a correctional facility with the inmates in the psychology department. Then I toured a jail and realized that it smelled so bad, and was surrounded by criminals, I was not really sure if that was something I could do every day. Being in a facility with inmates that have committed numerous crimes intrigued me. So, then I came to the conclusion that I really would like to be a behavior analysis. I want to study people and why they do the things they do. I want to help put away and capture criminals. I want to try to learn why people do some of the things that they do. I would like to investigate serial killers that have not been caught yet and study their crimes and see what type of personality that the killer has, to maybe one day capture another criminal or keep the criminals that we have off the streets. Overall I want to be able to help people and make them feel safe.

According to The Free Dictionary behavioral science is defined as a scientific discipline, such as sociology, anthropology, or psychology, in which the actions and reactions of humans and animals are studied through observational and experimental methods (The Free Dictionary, 2010). Behavioral science has many different names. Some will call it profiling, criminal profiling, behavior analysis, forensic psychology, offender profiling, and personality profiling. All these names pretty much mean to analyze a crime scene and use the information to find the crime perpetrator (Criminal Profiling). Criminal profiling is not facts it is a scientific ideas. It can help narrow down suspects. For example, a crime scene could tell you a lot about someone's personality. It could also help give you sex, age, and possibly height and weight. "Behavior reflects personality, and that is what profiling is all about" (Criminal Profiling).

Criminal Profiling works in a many different ways. One way is it could get a personality profile by ones method of operations (M.O.), the way the crime was committed. The m.o. could tell you what the victim and the offender have in common, the weapon used, if hostility or torture was used, or any type of sexual molestation (Criminal Profiling). Using these ideas one can try to determine the motives for the crime. Criminal profiling is a little bit of speculation, but mostly based on research from Sigmund Freud, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, and Dan McAdams. There also is newer research done by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (F.B.I.) and especially John Douglas who is a member of the F.B.I's investigative support unit (Criminal Profiling).

A lot of criminal profiling comes from the F.B.I's Behavioral Science Unit. This unit is dedicated to "developing new and innovative investigative approaches and techniques to the solution of crime by studying the offender, and his/her behavior and motivation" (Criminal Profiling). The following are the procedures from the F.B.I, and how they create a criminal profile (Criminal Profiling).

Step One-Profiling Inputs: collect all the evidence (fibers, paint chips, etc.), and all the pictures taken, notes, and measurements from the crime scene.

Step Two-Decision Process Models: evidence is arranged to locate any types of patters, such as, is it serial,