Geographical Profiling

Mobility is one characterisitc which distinguish organisms from non-living things; so do criminals. In criminal psychology, there's a usual approach known as "geographical profiling", which utilize this mobility characteristics of criminal to estimate where do the unsub settle and hence provide a more precise analysis of his MO.

In geographical profiling, it is usually connecting few crime scenes together to obtain a bigger picture of "nodes of familarity" or "comfort zones" of the unsub. The middle of the zone would be the highest probability where the unsub lives.

This technique begins by profiling the crime scene, and it is particularly useful when it is a body dumping sites. One should notes that is there any effort of the unsub to conceal the body, e.g. a body sinked in the river with a stone tied to the body indicates the unsub don't want anyone to find the body because the victim may probably somehow linked to him, one should consider crime of passion, or somethings more personel. Conversely, if the body emerged on the water surface tells us that the unsub doesn't care about whether the body is discovered or not, hence we can narrow down it may be opportunistic killing, and rule out personal element in crime.

Next, observe the route to the body dumping site. If it's an open space, the unsub must posses a vehicle, preferably a truck, which wouldn't arouse any suspicion to be at the scene. If the body is discovered in a jungle, the unsub must be familiar with the place, and he's strong enough to carry the body to the middle of jungle. With this, we can estimate where are the comfort zone of the scumbag.

In serial killing, body dumping sites usually indicates the comfort zone of the unsub, For scattered body dumping places, those places, if connected by lines on map, will form the peripheral of the comfort zone for unsub. On the other hand, if the dumping places is concentrated / centered, it is usually in the middle of journey within the unsub's locus of familarity, i.e. the route he takes almost everyday to work (most probably) and other daily activities. The reasons behind this bold assumption are:

1. The unsub would intentionally / unintentionally observe the condition of the body dumping sites daily. Just think this, if you're gonna get rid of a body, you would feel safer to go someplace where you are familiar with, and you must sure that the time you do that, the lesser people there the better.

2. For opportunistic serial killing, the dumping part should be considered as one of his MO because they way he get rid of the body is the chain of though what he was thinking after kiling the victim. Some killing of passion unsub intentionally hide the body in a "storing" way so that he can revive the pleasure after killing by visiting the body. These kind of ritual is not uncommon among those sociopath as it is the only way they feel connected to people (victims).

3. Dumping the body is a habit, rather than a casual action. For example, while throwing rubbish out of window, we tend to throw through one particular window and a more or less defined direction. Working something our of habit would be discomfort for the unsub.

More over, if possible, abduction site would further narrow the zone of comfort that we map. Hunting part is so crucial that the unsub need to abduct his victim from a place where he is also familiar, even opporunistic killing rarely occur outside comfort zone. He needs to know that his presence in that place while waiting for his prey shouldn't be interfered by any unwanted events which would compromise his action. Again, familrity is very important.

To further extend our discussion, one should think of operating outside the comfort zone if the kiling habit has been prolonged due to connection lacking in initial investigation. An unsub's comfort zone tends to get bigger as he kills more, as sadly, his confidence is gaining. Any new killing outside the comfort zone would assist in capturing the unsub, because with the geographical profiling, one can predict the dumping site and the interval since any new abduction is reported. In here, geographical profiling proven to be extremely useful.

At last, to end this blog, I would strengten that geographical profiling is not as easy as it seemed, becuase many aspects should be considered, like relevance of cases, evolution of unsub, socioeconomy of the particular area etc. Therefore, it's never easy and I'm damned fascinated everytime Reid perform this geographical profiling in criminal minds!

Here's Dr Spencer Reid:

(cool, right? ^^)