Behavior profiling, also known as criminal or offender profiling is used to identify the possible suspect. This form of profiling dates all the way back to the infamous Jack the Ripper in 1888 England. Gérard Labuschagne PhD, commander of the South African Police Service’s Investigative Psychology Section (IPS), stated that there are five necessary assessments for behavior profiling and they are: gathering data from numerous sources, reviewing data and identifying important features of each crime, organizing important parts of the data, comparing a mixture of motive and other ritualistic findings, and finally the compiling of all information into a report.
Terrorist profiling is defined as the “predictive profiling” type with the intent stopping a crime before it even occurs. This discipline is not to be confused with racial profiling. This technique uses operational profile factors to careful isolated threats. Some of the tools used are observations, training, and the collection of information about the potential threat. However, for the profiling of drug traffickers it can be a little more difficult, because there is not set “idea” or standard way to profile drug traffickers, according to definitions.uslegal.com. For the case of human trafficking, the level difficulty is the same, if not, harder when it comes to profiling. This type of profiling tends to require a victim to step forward, which rarely occurs.
For two of these specific areas of profiling, they all tend to have one thing in common and it is the use of assumptions. Though most people would not like to admit it, many life decisions are made through assumptions and that is a large part of these profiling areas. For behavior profiling, it requires the assumption that the same person is using the motive. In terrorist profiling, it requires the profiler to assume that the threat he/she is assessing is actually a threat. Human trafficking profiling requires the assumption that the victim is actually speaking the truth. All of the forms of profiling use the information given and add it to the already large pile of theories and data. This is another important and common factor, which the are of profiling requires a cumbersome amount data and theories to pursue any action, because of the idea that these are theories and are not always guaranteed to work.
Though they have similarities, the differences are quite extensive. For example, the field of offender profiling requires a criminal act to already occur, but the field of terrorist profiling does not. In fact, the entire idea of terrorist profiling is to prevent a crime from occurring in the first place. For trafficking, it is almost impossible to differentiate a criminal from an innocent traveler, but with offender profiling, there are alarming characteristics that most people can spot out. With all of these disciplines there is the pressure to make all the right assumptions and steps, because the field of profiling is fighting to have all the credit it so rightfully deserves.
