Threat Analysis: The Psycholinguistic Approach

• NCJ Number: 61627
• Journal: FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin Volume: 48 Issue: 9 Dated: September 1979 Pages: 5-9
• Author(s): M. S. Miron; J. E. Douglas
• Date Published: 1979
• Length: 5 pages
• Corporate Author: Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Sale Source: NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Combining psychology and linguistics, psycholinguistic techniques analyze threats or other messages from criminals for clues to their origins, backgrounds, and psychology.

Abstract

Psycholinguistic techniques combine the best of both psychology and linguistics to provide an understanding of those who use criminal coercion. A psycholinguistic research program at Syracuse University and in collaboration with the Behavioral Sciences Unit of the FBI Academy has developed a set of techniques that can be directly applied to the management of threat analysis. This research has progressed to the point where the techniques are now being used in a wide variety of criminal investigations. These techniques examine the message, whether written or oral, for clues as to the origins, background, and psychology of the originator. Each sentence, phrase, syllable, word, pause, and comma is automatically scanned by the computer for what it can reveal about the author. These messages can also establish the author’s identity by comparisons with other messages whose authors are known. When a threatening message is received, it is entered into the computer that then scans the message in an attempt to identify every word of the communication. Each word’s occurrence is categorized and tabulated to form a profile of the message. These categories have been developed into a threat dictionary that continues to grow in size and comprehensiveness. Today, this dictionary contains more than 350 categories representing more than 250,000 words. In addition, the computer stores summaries of over 15 million words gathered from analyses of ordinary spoken and written English that are used to compare a message against the usual forms of these words. These techniques have been used in many criminal investigations, with the most famous being the investigation of Patty Hearst and her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Since this technique is still in the developmental stages, its adaptability to criminal investigative matters remains limited in scope. With additional research, experimentation, and refinement, psycholinguistics may well take its place among the more established means of crime detection.