Why profiling doesnt work

Douglas , J. Douglas, J. Behavioral Sciences and the Law , 4: — Keppel, R. Snook, B. Criminal Justice and Behavior , — Trager, J. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology , 20— Wilson, D. Amicus Journal , 8— Skip to main content. Allegations Douglas et al. If a particular group is stopped more often, even if they are committing less crime than the rest of the population, the fact that they are scrutinized more frequently will result in higher charge rates.

This then becomes the justification for profiling. Some scholars therefore argue that, at the end of the day, statistics do not tell the offending behaviour of different races, but rather they measure the actions of the entity engaging in profiling.

Therefore, there is significant evidence that racial profiling is neither an efficient nor an effective practice. And, the discussion that follows shows that racial profiling comes with a huge price tag to individuals, families and communities while negatively impacting the very institutions that practice it. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics which reviewed 1,, searches of citizens by police in , have revealed that the chances of finding contraband after searching minorities Black and Latino are the same or less than finding evidence of crime on White persons searched.

Similarly when the U. Profilers investigating a blast on the U. Iowa said it was a murder-suicide due to unrequited homosexual love, but investigators later concluded that it was caused by either human error or equipment failure. Profilers in the investigation of the Green River Killer dismissed a letter from the murderer as fake it turned out to be real and helped target the wrong man , an innocent taxi driver. Criminal profiling can be used like any other investigative tool to generate leads and help cast a wide but targeted net.

But profilers have to be able to back up their statements with concrete evidence, and profiling should never be used to finger a specific individual, he said.

Safarik said good profilers are cautious, try not to overreach, and simply help to narrow down a field of potential suspects. Asked about successes, Safarik said he helped investigators who were stumped by two double homicides of elderly couples in in Iredell County, North Carolina. He took a look at the evidence and decided they were barking up the wrong tree. Police ended up charging a year-old woman. But Safarik was also the subject of a recent Los Angeles Times story saying that his murder-trial testimony helped send an innocent man to jail.

He also said his role in the prosecution was overblown, and that his testimony was thoroughly vetted and deemed acceptable in three trials.

Mental health struggles are an obvious example, but there are less obvious ones too, like getting better at predictions. Philip Tetlock at the University of Pennsylvania has been, for decades, studying how experts and laypeople make predictions about future events, and holding tournaments to isolate the factors that lead to good, accurate forecasts. The social consequences of being able to forecast the future better are immense. This is even clearer if you look to the past. World War I and the mortgage crisis were huge, complicated events, but they were also, in part, forecasting errors.

Does that really feel like the highest use of your talents? Few psychologists, to be fair, do this now; most go into clinical practice or do basic research as academics. But there were 19, homicides in By comparison, about , to , people die in the US every year due to cigarettes , about 88, due to alcohol, and between 3, and 49, due to the flu. Closer to the world of psychiatry, more than 40, Americans die annually from suicide ; given that we know severe mental illness increases non-suicide mortality too, the true death toll of depression and other mood disorders is significantly higher.

Maybe increasing clearance rates for serial killers is more tractable, an easier lift than bringing those numbers down. But I have my doubts.