Criminal Psychology & Personality Profiling

A personality is like a fingerprint--it's a key to capturing a criminal.

Television actors portraying criminal profilers have led the average person to believe that criminal psychology and personality profiling have the same meaning. Though personality profilers, also known as criminal profilers, have experience in criminal psychology, the two are not the same.

Criminal Psychology

Criminal psychology is the study of reasons an individual may commit a crime and his reactions following the crime. It studies the criminal reactions, thoughts, intentions and wills of the criminal, the victim and the witness.

Criminal Psychologist Role

Joan Esherick, the author of "Criminal Psychology and Personality Profiling," says criminal psychologists are those "who study the minds and behaviors or criminals and others associated with crime in order to understand how and why they operate they way they do and to identify certain patterns of behavior."

Personality Profiling

Profilers are criminal psychologists trained to investigate a crime scene or study the information pertaining to a crime scene in order to perceive the behavioral traits, characteristics and patterns of the criminal. They can often determine the criminal's personality, behavior and lifestyle through the duplication of crimes they committed.

Time Frame

Police and behavioral scientists use profiling to limit an investigation process to the offenders most likely to have committed a specific crime.

Career

Both a criminal psychologist and a personality profiler require extensive knowledge about crime scenes and the behavior of criminals. They must also have extensive knowledge pertaining to human psychology.

References

• "Criminal Psychology and Personality Profiling"; Joan Esherick; 2006

Resources

• Criminal Profiling Research: Introduction to Criminal Profiling