The Criminal Geographical Profile

Geographic profiling can be defined as a technique of activity analysis spatial or geographic location of offenders applied to criminal investigation (Garrido, 2006). A technique that is providing police investigators and criminologists with a profile of the criminal according to his mental map, his movements geographical areas, whose final objective is to be able to establish hypotheses about the criminal's domicile, to foresee his movements and his area of ​​activity. Together with the psychological profile it is an effective tool that complements the rest of the police investigation. In this PsychologyOnline article, we will talk about Criminal Geographical Profile. Data from research carried out in this area are also provided.

Index

1. Introduction to the concept
2. Cognitive map.
3. Environmental Criminology.
4. Circle hypothesis.
5. Principle of decay with distance.
6. Some studies of criminal geographic behavior.
7. Profile methodology.
8. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Software for the creation of geographic profiles.

Geographic profiling is a technique of complementary or parallel analysis to the psychological profile that lately is being developed enormously with the help of geographic information systems (GIS) that, as we will see later, are equipping police investigators and criminologists of an effective tool with which to work in certain investigations, in addition to serving as a support and information base to develop new theories and policies criminals.

Basically, we can define the geographic profile as a technique of analysis of the spatial or geographic activity of criminals applied to criminal investigation. (Garrido, 2006). As a complement to the psychological profile, it does not deal with how the criminal is, but rather tries to give answer to where the criminal acts, know how he moves, what are his movements and areas of action. The final objective for the investigation would be to be able to provide the geographical location of the criminal's residence, in addition to offering hypotheses about future areas of action.

Generally this technique, although as we will see later has other applications, It is often used in investigations of serial crimes where the police do not have forensic clues or evidence to guide the investigation. In these cases, having a geographical profile can reduce the number of suspects to a specific area, generating a number of them more. easy for officers to handle, in addition to centralizing police resources in those areas where the offender is most likely to act or reside. Like the psychological profile, the geographical one has limitations and always talks about probabilities, does not solve cases on its own, but it is one more investigative tool that can help the policeman.

In this sense, the geographic profile is not developed apart from research, but is based on a comprehensive study of everything that is known of the case through the victims, forensic evidence and crime scenes, giving special attention to geographical factors such as the type of crime scene, characteristics of the area, access routes and exit, etc.

Between the theoretical bases of the geographic profile, is the idea of ​​a cognitive map or mental scheme, which Bell, Fisher, Baum and Green (1996) define as a very personal family environment that we experience, that is, a representation of our personal way of understanding the environment.

This cognitive scheme allows us to acquire, encode, store, remember and manipulate information about our environment. (Downs and Stea, 1973). Among the functions of cognitive maps are to provide an environmental frame of reference to move through our environment, the person who is not able to relate the place where he is with his context is lost, is therefore a device to generate decisions about actions to move around our environment, also contributing to generate a feeling of emotional security (Aragonés, 1998).

The mind map is therefore a schematic as a map or plan that the subject has been developing with the experience with his environment and that allows him to develop and move through his territory. We all have a mental map of the area in which we reside, of the city and in general of the entire territory through which we move throughout our lives.

In the topic at hand, criminals use their mental map to go to certain places, choose certain areas, access and flee by certain routes, In short, the relationship that the criminal establishes with his environment to commit his acts is conditioned by his cognitive map.

The importance of knowing this mental map lies in the possibility of being able to determine with its analysis the starting point of his movements, a place that is usually his home, although it can also be his place of work or another address previous. This is what is often called the anchor point and will be developed later.

The geographical knowledge that makes up the mental map as we have seen previously is a personal and proper representation of the person, different people can have a mental map different even if they live in the same area, since they start from personal interpretations and the particular experience that each person has with the area in which he lives and the places where transit. The criminal therefore consults and uses his cognitive map to analyze what he can do in certain areas, how he can get to and from there, what kind of victims and obstacles can be found, what places are more comfortable and familiar to move, where do you sit insurance...

As Garrido (2007) states, many serial killers follow a defined logic when deciding where they commit their crimes, following a cost-benefit logic: when we invest a significant effort in something, the place that We choose to make this investment, it has to minimize the costs in relation to the benefits that are intended obtain. It is conceivable then that the murderers travel to places where they think they can find most vulnerable victims, where he can be most certain that they will not be caught or can escape with ease.

It is, therefore, an objective of the geographical profile, to get a copy of that mental map of the criminal and be able to understand and use it as he would do to detect upcoming areas of action and narrow down as much as possible the base of operations from which he starts his crimes.

Environmental criminology (Brantingham, 1981) is dedicated to studying the criminal events as a result of the relationship between potential offenders and potential criminal targets that occur at specific points in space and time.

Environmental criminology will therefore be concerned with analyzing how crime occurs in specific places and at specific times, giving great importance to the principle of proximity, which postulates that criminals generally act near their home.

Along with this principle is that of rational choice, which suggests that the offender establishes a cost-benefit analysis, in which he weighs the criminal gain and the probability of being discovered.
Generally, this type of "planning" or "analysis" carried out by the offender, takes place within a geographic scope familyr for this, they take place fundamentally within the scope of routine activities (Cohen and Felson, 1979), which indicates that it is necessary that three factors are present for the crime to occur: a person motivated to commit the crime, a target that attracts them and with low cost and lack of surveillance or insufficient surveillance to dissuade him. If any of these factors are not present, the crime will not be committed.

David Canter, professor of psychology at the University of Liverpool, is one of those who has most developed the geographical profiling technique, collaborating with the police in the elaboration of psychological profiles and geographic.

The approach of Canter and his collaborators starts from the fact that heThe crime sites are related to the criminal's domicile or with some important place for him, which can be considered his base of operations. Canter found that between 50% and 75% of the rapists in his study lived in an area that could be defined by a circle whose diameter joined the two furthest places where he had attacked, to which she named the circle hypothesis (Garrido 2006).

In his study of 45 cases of sexual offenders, 39 of them lived within the circle that outlined their two furthest crimes. In these cases, the criminal departs from his home, this point constituting the center from which he moves. radio to the places where he will commit his crimes, once committed they return to the safety of their home. He called this type of aggressor "marauders."

The distance between the places of the events was proportionally related to the aggressor's domicile, in such a way that places very distant from each other were They were also further away from the aggressor's home than those places of the events that were closer to the each.

The rest of the aggressors who did not live within the circle he called commuters or travelers, aggressors who travel from his home to an area where he will commit his crimes. (Canter, 2005).

Canter together with Maurice Godwin, who we will talk about later, came to the conclusion after a study of serial killers, that in the realization of the geographical profile not only must take into account the crime scene where the victim is found, but it is also very important know the place where the aggressor and victim come into contact, since this is the place that is most related to the residence of the victim. For this, it is necessary to know the steps of the victim, to know where she was last seen, how and why she got there, etc.

Canter makes other contributions to the development of the psychological profile, such as those that analyze the interaction between aggression and victim, giving rise to his well-known model of the five factors, which the interested reader can find in the bibliography.

Kim Rossmo, a police inspector and currently an advisor to security forces and bodies in several countries, raises the principle of decay with distance. After a mathematical analysis of a multitude of cases, he shows how as increase displacements to commit crimes, the The frequency of these crimes decreases. This is related to the preference for committing crimes in the vicinity of the home and for the greater probability of choosing objectives that involve less environmental modification (Brantingham and Brantingham, 1984). However, Rossmo argues that there is also a safety or comfort zone near his home in which the criminal does not commit his crimes, since it is an area where he can be recognized by the victims and / or by witnesses.

It is important to understand that the distance in these mind maps is an individual perception and depends a lot on the geographical experiences of the person. That is to say, what for one person may be a long distance, for another it may not be, since they have a different perception of distance. For a person accustomed to traveling, driving 100 km by car may be a short distance, but for another it may be considered a long journey. In relation to this, the statistical results of several studies suggest that the grouping of crimes close to each other correlates more with the proximity of the offender's domicile, than those crimes that occur geographically more isolated. These data are of great value for the investigation of serial crimes.

Rossmo also establishes a criminal category based on the type of victims chosen in relation to their geographical movements:

• Hunter (Hunter): He searches for his victims in the surroundings of where he lives.
• Poacher: He acts in a specific area that is different from where he lives.
• Fisherman (Troller): He acts in his area of ​​routine activity, where he works, where he has fun... looking for the victim and the opportune situation.
• Trapper: he uses tricks and situations to lead the victim to her anchor point, and that is where he commits the crime. (Rossmo, 1995).

When making the geographic profile, Rossmo makes an exhaustive study of the possible routes the offender has followed to commit the crimes, trying to draw conclusions regarding the peculiarities of mobility of that subject, if you use short or long distances, if you travel on national roads or only move around the city, etc. Mobility characteristics develop and can sometimes change following the chronological order of crimes, in such a way that by gaining confidence with the criminal experience, the criminal will expand his radius of action, and may also modify his modus operandi and making sure that if in the first crimes he was walking, later he acquires confidence and risks traveling further by car.

In relation to this, a criminal may start out as one category and later move on to another. It is important to take these possible changes into account by making a chronological analysis of their crimes and detecting changes in patterns.

Rossmo raises a series of questions that must be answered when making a geographic profile:

1. Why choose that victim in that place determined.
2. Why choose this zone.
3. How did it get up there.
4. The route followed, what characteristics does it have: it is easy, known, peculiar ...
5. What has been able to attract him from that place, what relationship can he have with him.
6. In the case of serial crimes, what would the geographic patterns be?
7. How do you get out of that place and what characteristics does it have? Escape route.
8. It is an appropriate place for this type of behavior.
9. There are indications that the victim has been taken there from another location or was approached there.
10. That type of transport may have used.

As in the psychological, the geographical profile also has inductive methods in which solved cases are analyzed to extract patterns of geographic behavior of criminals and thus provide theories and hypotheses for the deductive methodology. This methodology in a broader view and use, can be used to describe the geographic distribution of crime in a certain area. See in which areas the different types of crime are distributed and concentrated and how these criminals behave geographically can help not only to establish more effective policing measures but also to develop more targeted, targeted and targeted criminal policies optimal.

From the point of view of criminology, it is intended to advance further in the study of the offender, not focusing as before on personality characteristics, intellectual or educational deficiencies, but attending situational factors such as the physical environment and geographic behavior of offenders (Stangeland and Garrido, 2004).

Some studies carried out, such as those by Canter, Godwin and Rossmo, which have given rise to important theoretical bases in the realization of geographical profiles, have already been commented previously, the Canter circle hypothesis, the development of Rossmo's safety zone and a series of behavioral patterns at a geographical level that have been validated in numerous research.

Anne Davies and Andrew Dale conducted a study in 1995 in which 299 solved cases and 79 rapists were analyzed, some of them serial rapists. The results allowed to conclude that almost all the serial rapists had perpetrated their crimes in the vicinity of their anchor points and that they did not progressively widen the distance between their home and the place of the crime, but instead dedicated themselves to acting within a limited area. This study also confirmed the hypothesis that older rapists travel further to commit their crimes than younger ones, who act very close to their homes. (Excerpted from the study of the German Federal Criminal Investigation Office, 2004).

Robert Keppel, a homicide investigator and associate professor at Sam Houston University, has conducted several investigations into cases of missing and subsequently murdered children. Among some of his results, he obtained that more than half of the aggressors resided less than 400 meters from the place of contact with the victim and that in two out of three cases, the presence of the aggressor in that place was justified because he carried out some type of activity there everyday. (Excerpted from the study of the German Federal Criminal Investigation Office, 2004).

James L. LeBeau studied 320 cases of rape in the US, of which 156 cases were isolated crimes and the rest were serial rapes carried out by 39 rapists. The results confirm the hypothesis that rapists act regionally very close to their anchor point, indeed, compared to what It might seem that serial rapists are the ones who make the shortest distances between their anchor point and the area of ​​contact with their victim. All the rapists had an anchor point at a distance of approximately 4 km. regarding the place of contact with your victim. (Excerpted from the study of the German Federal Criminal Investigation Office, 2004).

The Federal Office of Criminal Investigation of Germany carried out in 2004 an extensive study on geographical behavior distinguishing between the crime of rape and the crime of sexual homicides. Due to the large number of cases studied, 348 rapes and 170 sexual homicides, the results are statistically highly relevant. These are some of the results:

In 30% of the crimes in this study, the anchorage point and the place of contact with the victim was less than 1 km. away, and in more than 85% of them about 20 km. These short distances are explained because the acts are committed during the performance of daily routines by the offender. In relation to this, 35% of the rapes and 49% of the homicides occurred in more than one place, that is, the place contact was not considered appropriate by the offender and transferred his victims to another place where he consumed the crime.

When analyzing the violations distinguishing between those that are acts planned by the offender and those that are spontaneous acts, they discovered that the offenders who planned their rapes tended to travel longer distances from their anchor point, creating a safety zone around the area of anchorage. However, in both groups the distance between the anchor point and the contact point did not exceed 20 km. in almost 80% of the cases. In the case of homicides, these differences could not be verified.

The same trend is shown if we compare rapes belonging to serial rapists with isolated rapes. Serial rapists, like those who plan, tend to go further.

Although without great statistical significance, they verified how rapists older than 30 years traveled longer distances than those under 29 years of age, being much more significant in the case of those under 18, in which 85% operated in an area of ​​5 km. relative to its anchor point. In the case of homicides, these differences were not found either.

If the rape victim were children, in 92% of the cases the crime took place within a radius of less than 15 km from the place of contact. This can be explained because children are victims who are only available during hours of the day, which increases the risk of being discovered. This risk can be reduced if the offender acts in an area that gives him security and in which he can control better risks and go unnoticed, as it is part of their daily activity and will not be seen as a strange. Although this trend is not clearly perceived in the case of homicides, the results suggest that 45% of the victims under 13 years of age, the distance between the anchor point and the place of contact was 1 km compared to only 25% when they were over 13 years.

In this study it was also demonstrated that it was more optimal, for locate the anchor point of the aggressor, take the place of contact with the victim rather than the place where she is in the body (BKA, 2004).
The data from this investigation are consistent with those obtained by the FBI in the analysis of 108 cases of violations in the which, the author's address was less than one kilometer away in almost 50% of the cases (in Stangeland and Garrido, 2004).

Canter and Gregory reviewed in 1994 a database of 45 serial rapists from England, distinguishing between rapists over 25 and under 25 years. The results show that 54% of the aggressors under 25 years of age lived within 800 meters of the first attack compared to 38% of those over 25 years of age (in Stangeland and Garrido, 2004).

As we mentioned before, the realization of the geographical profile cannot be separated from the rest of the investigation tools: eye inspection, crime scene, forensic data, police investigations, profile psychological... Therefore, the profile must always be open to the introduction of new data, which makes it constantly changing and evolving. This is not only a negative characteristic, but it is an advantage that must be taken into account, since the introduction of new information optimizes and improves the results of the profile.

There is no structured and consensual methodology for the realization of geographic profiles as it happens in the psychological profiles. In this section we will try to design a basic methodology based on the information provided by some authors who are dedicated to the realization of profiles, in particular we are going to base ourselves on the works of Canter, Rossmo and Godwin. These authors have evolved their methodology until the creation of specific software for profiling, since the data needs to be manipulated through databases and statistical packages and integrate into geographic information systems (S.I.G), for which support is useful and essential computer scientist. We will talk about these softwares and GIS in a later section.

Regarding the basic methodology, the first case consists of the collection of data regarding the case. In this sense, we have to analyze all the information that may reach us (some authors even visit the scenes of the crimes that occurred). You have to do a retrospective analysis of similar cases occurred in the area to relate the cases that may be part of a series. As we have seen previously, the geographical behavior of criminals has a temporal evolution, so it is necessary to know as far as possible. possible all criminal acts that our offender may have committed, both temporally and spatially, as well as the data of these research.

Some investigators, especially the FBI, use the VICAP (Violent Criminal Detention Program) database. This computerized database stores, manages and relates crimes based mainly on data of the criminal's modus operandi and establishing a series of statistical and comparative analyzes with other crimes. This database can be accessed, consulted and introduced by law enforcement agencies, making it a continuously growing database.

Godwin, however, advises against the use of VICAP since, according to him, this database is based on the temporal stability of the modus operandi used by the criminal, without attending to the Possible modifications or changes in guidelines that the criminal may carry out when committing crimes over time or due to the specific circumstances of a specific crime. According to Godwin, criminals do not always do the same in crimes and even what in criminology is called the signature (another criterion to relate crimes), it can be modified, interrupted or hidden in some crimes.

Godwin uses a statistical analysis of certain features presented in the crime scene for the list of cases (use of restraints, blunt objects, naked victim ...). These features are compared between different crimes within a matrix and the analysis assigns a percentage to the relationship between each two crimes. For Godwin, crimes that have more than 30% relationship between the events that occurred at the scene of the crime would be indicating crimes that are linked to each other and that therefore appear to be acts committed by the same person. (Godwin, 2006).

Once all the information on the crimes has been collected, we must give answers to the questions that Rossmo raised previously, attending to the geographical characteristics of crimes and of the different crime scenes, as well as all the data that can facilitate the subsequent creation of hypotheses. We may need to conduct some investigations or collect some information on the ground that has not been documented by the investigation equipment, such as distance measurement, temporal measurement between certain events, evaluation of access and exit routes, nearby roads, geography of the terrain, existence of public transportation, integration of the scene with the rest of the neighborhood, town...

With all this information we must begin to carry out a chronological analysis of crimes and to establish guidelines, modus operandi and working hypotheses, being always receptive and attentive to the new information that may come to us.

Next, what is usually done is point out places on a map where the crimes have occurred, taking into account the different crime scenes that may exist, as well as the places where the victim-aggressor come into contact. For most authors it is not enough to just use the place where the victim is located, it should be taken into account Also if they are different, of course, the place of contact, the place of the attack, the place of rape or sexual offense and the place of the homicide

Currently this task is usually carried out using geographic information systems (GIS) with which later a calculation of the density of events is carried out, indicating the areas where there are fewer and more concentration of events. From here we can establish hypotheses using the theories and results offered by behavioral studies. geographic location of criminals, trying to point out possible anchor points, security zone, possible future zones of performance...

The geographic profile must not be pretentiousSince it is not possible to provide the exact address where the criminal lives, he must make contributions to the investigation to the extent of the data and results he handles. As we mentioned before, its function is to help optimally manage the always limited resources of the investigation, pointing out to the agents where the criminal is most likely to move and therefore where it is advisable to search and where no. In the face of a massive investigation of potential suspects, you can help reduce this number by indicating how many of those potential suspects have anchor points in the predicted area. This greatly facilitates the investigation, reduces resources and helps with the rapid resolution of the case (with the advantages that this entails, especially in cases of murders).

It is necessary to point out, that the anchor point does not always refer to the criminal's domicile, sometimes it is an old home, the place of work, the home of his girlfriend. etc., therefore, all this information must be collected from the suspects that appear. In order to handle and work with all this information, it is necessary to use computerized databases.

Although this technique has generally been used and developed in cases of serial murders, the methodology and technique It can also be useful in investigations of serial sex offenders, serial thefts, fires, kidnappings, disappearances ...

A GIS is a system of hardware, software and procedures designed to support the capture, management, manipulation, analysis, modeling and graphing of data or objects spatially referenced that allows us to analyze the information provided in order to plan and make decisions (Carmona and Monsalve, 2002).

In general, a GIS must have the ability to answer the following questions:

• Where is object A?
• Where is A in relation to B?
• How many occurrences of type A are there in a distance D from B?
• What is the value that the Z function takes at position X?
• What is the dimension of B (Frequency, Perimeter, Area, Volume)?
• What is the result of the intersection of different types of information?
• What is the shortest path (least resistance or least cost) on the ground from a point (X1, Y1) along a corridor P to a point (X2, Y2)?
• What's at the point (X, Y)?
• What objects are close to those objects that have a combination of characteristics?
• What is the result of classifying the following sets of spatial information?

Using the defined real-world model, simulate the effect of process P at a time T given a scenario S.
The GIS works with geographic and database data, putting it together and creating a geographic database. The main questions that a Geographic Information System can solve are:

• Location: ask about the characteristics of a specific place.
• Condition: compliance or not with conditions imposed on the system.
• Trend: comparison between temporal or spatial situations different from some characteristic.
• Routes: calculation of optimal routes between two or more points.
• Guidelines: detection of spatial patterns.
• Models: generation of models from simulated phenomena or actions.

These GIS are currently used in various fields ranging from archeology, agriculture, marketing to criminology, any study in which the geographical factor participates is likely to be approached by this system.

As we have seen previously, some researchers specializing in geographic profiles have developed this technique until arriving at the creation of specific softwares for the creation of profiles.

At the University of Liverpool, Canter's team developedDRAGNET, that part of the data of the crime places, to from here, analyze them together with the various data provided by the research and by the patterns of behaviors acquired by their studies inductive. It also allows working with distances measured in Manhattan metric instead of using the standard Euclidean, which makes the analysis of displacements and distances more realistic.

Kim Rossmo's team developed RIGEL, marketed as Enviromental Criminology Research International (ACRI). This software supports a wide variety of geographic information and database systems that can be customized to suit the client. It is part of a linking system like VICAP and uses the proprietary Java-based ECRI algorithm. Information can include crime scenes, suspect information, case and investigator details... It presents the results on two- or three-dimensional maps called jeopardies, showing the most probable place of residence of an offender. It is currently used by the police in many countries and has been used in hundreds of cases around the world.

Godwin developed the software PREDATOR, which starts from a statistical analysis for linking serial cases (as we have seen previously, rejects the VICAP method) to later enter the coordinates of the place of contact and the crime scene where the Body. Longitude and latitude coordinates are converted to the UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) grid, which serve to express the unique location of crime-related data. The software uses a color system to show on the map the analysis of the dispersions, concentrations of events and the most probable zone of anchorage of the offender.

Ned Levine developed theCRIMESTAT, with a grant from the U.S. National Institute of Justice, a spatial statistics program that is not used specifically for the realization of geographic profiles, but for the geographic study of the delinquency. CrimeStat has a primary file with crime locations and dates, and a secondary file that is associated with the primary for clustering. The system offers information on spatial crime distribution, distance analysis, hot spot analysis, and spatial modeling. It is used extensively by US police departments (Martínez et als. 2004).

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to The Criminal Geographical Profile, we recommend that you enter our category of Legal psychology.

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