NCJ Number
205544
Journal
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology Volume: 48 Issue: 3 Dated: June 2004 Pages: 313-329
Date Published
June 2004
Length
17 pages
Annotation
In building on previous research by Kocsis and Hayes (2004), this study examined whether a bias exhibited by police officers in their perceptions of profiles would be replicated in a sample of non-police subjects.
Abstract
Study participants were 353 freshman students from a major Australian university; 64 percent of the participants were male, and the age range of participants ranged from 16 to 42 years old. Participants had no previous experience and/or knowledge related to law enforcement, forensic psychology, or any disciplinary background specifically related to criminal psychological profiling. The survey instrument was composed of three portions. The first section attempted to manipulate the participant's belief in the profiling technique by either emphasizing the virtues, accuracy, and utility of the profiling technique or by emphasizing the profiling technique as unreliable and essentially invalid. A neutral presentation of the profiling technique represented a control condition that would present participants with a reading task of approximately equal length to both the positive and negative affirmations regarding the profiling technique. The second section of the survey instrument contained a five-item scale designed to measure a participant's belief (i.e., confidence) in the ability of a profile to predict attributes of an unknown offender. The third section of the instrument contained a paragraph that described a homicide that had recently occurred in rural New South Wales (Australia). The description gave only minimal information about the murder. The participants were then given several paragraphs that were purported to be a criminal profile written by one of two different people in response to the request of the investigating detective. The findings of this study differed from the findings from the police sample, in that the author labels for the various profiles did not affect subjects' view of their validity, contrary to the findings in the police study. Regarding the impact of beliefs about the validity and accuracy of offender profiling, the current study found that beliefs about the accuracy and utility of profiling affected assessments of the validity and accuracy of profiling regardless of the author of the profile. Future research should examine the extent to which our appreciation for the practice and validity of profiling is based on objective scientific facts distinct from beliefs and perceptions of profiling conditioned by decades of favorable reports on this technique. Such conditioning was indicated by the generally positive view of profiling held by participants who were exposed to a neutral content regarding the value of the profiling technique. 4 tables, 38 references, and appended Belief in Profiling Scale