D#6, HW#7

This deadline wasn't too hard to meet. It took a while to do it. I wasn't able to log into my blog. I don't know why but it just wouldn't let me. The assignments this week were really helpful in getting focus on the writing projects. The reading assignments helped me understand what things I need in my essay to help support my main statements. Chapter 16 put into perspective all the work I still need to do. I still need to do a lot of research in order to write a proper and accurate paper.

D#6, HW#6

Petherick, W. (2005) The Science of Criminal Profiling. Barnes & Nobles.

The book is on nothing but criminal profiling. It's very informative and extremely relevant to my essay. It has everything from the history to credibility of profilers in the courtroom. The author doesn't seem to have a stance. He seems to be more into informing his audience than trying to persuade them. The publisher is Barnes and Nobles. They are an extremely popular book store, but to be honest I didn't know they published their own books. The book was published in 2005, so it's still fairly new. There aren't too many copies available, but you can order them.

D#6, HW#5

Chapter 16 goes on to list forms of evidence and descriptions of each. How I interpreted it based on the fact that there is first hand evidence and second hand evidence is that you have to be somehow directly involved with your evidence. The evidence that would most contribute to my writing projects would probably be observations, interviews, online sources, and library sources. When I mention observations it doesn’t necessarily mean that I will be observing profilers, it is observing how the media (if there is anything related in the news at the moment) portrays profilers. Hopefully, I’ll be able to interview a profiler through my department. I would like to get their perspective on the negative media towards them since the Washington shootings. The online and library sources will be used to research information from past news stories and events involving profilers, as well as information on the profession itself.

D#6, HW#4

http://www.criminalprofiling.ch/introduction.html
I like this website because it was specifically made to inform the general public. It gives an introduction and overview of profiling and the purposes. It has links to scientific articles, research links and also has briefing boards. This site also has links for students. There is a lot of good information given including cases and examples of profilers being used.

http://www.angelfire.com/sc3/cjrp/criminalprofile.html
This site I actually enjoyed reading. It had so much different information than what I'd been reading. The internet sources were starting to get repetative. Everything I was reading was all the same, just worded differently. It has definitions of different types of evidence and characteristics that I haven't read in any other site or book.

The Cases That Haunt Us: From Jack the Ripper to Jonbenet Ramsey, the FBI's Legendary Mindhunter Unravels the Mysteries That Won't Go Away by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker
I haven't read the book, but reading the reviews and the despcription of the book makes me feel like this is the perfect book to use for my real life case examples. It also helps that one of the authors is believed to be one of the key guys to get criminal profiling started with the FBI.

Unfortunately, I'm still unable to use my MCC account to get into the library database so I just used three sites for my bibliography.

D#6, HW#3

When writing my research proposal I did a lot of things differently. A lot of people said that I didn't really have a voice in my paper and that you couldn't tell what side I was on or what my views were. So, when I was revising my paper I worked pretty hard to incorporate my personality and my opinion on the subject. I found that when writing my papers it is much easier for me to write out a list of ideas or points I want to write on, where I want to put them and from there adding more writing more details along with giving supporting evidence. I think from now on when I write my papers I'll stick to this technique. I think the main thing I'm really concerned about when writing this is getting ahold of people to interview. I've read plenty of websites and some books about profilers. I've got almost all of the history information down and most of the techinical terms and processes down. The only thing I can do is just call a bunch of people at the Phoenix Police Department and hope to get someone who can help me.

D#6, HW#2

Everyday we turn the TV on, switch the channel to the news and immediately hear about horrifying crimes such as a child being beaten, a string of women being raped, or an entire family being murdered in their home while sleeping. Most times investigators are fortunate enough to get fingerprints or other evidence that tells them who the murderer is, but they aren’t always that lucky. What do they do when there isn’t enough evidence to capture a suspect? Recently they’ve been turning to a new form of technology, criminal profiling.
Criminal profiling has just become a new topic of discussion. Unfortunately, profiling has not been getting the best reviews. After the release of the movie The Silence of the Lambs in 1991 the public now has a skewed view of what profilers really do. They have been portrayed to the public through fictional media as being dark, having the ability to get into the mind of a criminal, and having an almost psychic ability when naming a suspect. Though many believe this highly exaggerated description, it is far from the truth.
Due to this misconception, most have now made it widely known that they feel profilers have no place aiding investigators in unsolved criminal cases. It is felt by many that criminal profilers do not help, but instead tend to divert investigators from processing a true suspect and ultimately leading them on a wild goose chase. The Washington Shooters case in the late 90’s had only reinforced this to the public when an inaccurate profile had been created and then used to identify a suspect. Since then it has been hard for profilers to rebuild a credible status.
Because of recent events people are now asking, “Should Criminal Profilers be used in criminal investigations?” There have been some very bad incidents where a profile has either been inaccurate or misconstrued and has left a dark shadow of doubt on the use of profilers. If only the public was properly informed of what profiling really entails, they would not be as judgmental about the use of profilers.
In order for people to understand how profiling really works research needs to be done on the process of creating a profile, what the information in a profile really means, and how that information really aids investigators. To properly convince people of the credibility of profilers, interviews from a profiler and a department that uses profilers need to be added to help support any information given. It would also be helpful to include examples of cases where a suspect was correctly identified from the use of a profile.
There are certain limitations to obtaining supporting evidence needed due to there being a minimal amount of people to possibly interview. Fortunately, working in a department of law enforcement is beneficial when it comes to contacting someone in a police station. As far as interviewing a profiler, there is no certainty that there will be someone to interview. A majority of the information that will be used to complete the final essay will be from books, online sources, newspaper articles, and hopefully from people within the law enforcement agencies.

D#6, HW#1

In chapter 4 it goes into discussion about facts and supporting evidence. Most of this I already knew. I understand that hard evidence is going to be much more believable than reasoning. I also knew what forms of supporting evidence you can get and how accurate or believable they would be, such as experiments and interviews. There were some forms of supporting evidence I’ve seen before but didn’t know that it was supporting evidence, for example precedent. Chapter 16 seemed to be common knowledge. The types of evidence that they gave you were ones you learn about when you’re in high school. What I didn’t know though was that online sources and library sources were second hand evidence and research. I didn’t know there was primary and secondary evidence. Chapter 19 was helpful in narrowing down what resources I would like to use. I didn’t know that some resources wouldn’t be credible to use in an essay. I thought almost everything you read or found about a subject could be used. After reading the chapter I’ve realized that not everything written on a subject is good information.