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.

D#4HW#3 WP#1

Heather Morris
Research Proposal
D#4HW#3

No sooner did Criminal Profilers become known to the public did they become under scrutiney. There have now been questions as to whether profilers are contributors in investigations or just leading investigors farther away from their suspect. Although, it is widely believed that profilers are meant to take evidence and determine the psychological make up as well as physical characteristics of a suspect and be able to tell an investigator who committed the crime, it is far from true. Due to wide misconceptions of what criminal profilers job pretain to, the question that needs to be answered is "How do Criminal Profilers really contribute to criminal investigations?".

I will hopefully be entering this field after completing school and my interests lie strong with this subject. I know most about this field due to my research and the fact that I work alongside many officers who deal with profilers. I believe it is interesting to watch a person take evidence from a crime scene and come up with a generalized profile of a criminals behavior and possible physical characteristics. Media tends to criticize profilers because they feel that the work they produce is all guess work and is not contributing to investigations. However, if researched further a profilers created M.O. does usually give specific physical characteristics as much as it does the behavior of the criminal that can help detectives determine the offenders next move.

My research will focus on informing others on what profilers jobs include when involved in a case and how that helps detectives with their investigators. My audience will be law enforcement agencies who don't know much about profilers as well as the media and others who aren't aware of the contributions made by profilers. The purpose of conducting this research is to inform people who are ignorant to the job descriptions of Criminal Profilers.

My research plan includes using library databases, recent books written on the subject, as well as websites found on the internet including the FBI's behavioral unit site. I also intend on talking to at least one profiler through the Phoenix Police Department to get their opinions on the criticism.

My time line basically includes writing my research proposal on time as well as trying to get all the information needed to do my assignment the week before due in order to have my final paper put together in a decent amount of time to proof read and make any necessary revisions. I will also need to constantly stay on top of my assignments regardless of how hard that may be, because in the long run it will make things much easier for me.

D#4, HW#1 Reading Reflection

Okay, so it's been really hard for me to get on here and do these homework assignments. I read Chapter 9: Evaluate Sources and it was really helpful. I didn't really know how to evaluate a source until I read this chapter. I usually just put in my paper what I felt was relevant to what I was writing about without actually taking the time to determine whether it was relevant to my specific audience. The checklist on page 128 was great in that it gave me the questions I needed to ask myself when determining how reliable the source is and whether the information on the site can support my arguements . Chapter 5 was a big help because I'm extremely computer illiterate and have never done a search on a library catalog before. I know, almost everyone has used one. I honestly haven't though. I usually just ask the librarian for what I'm looking for. I haven't used anything online to search for what I need, so it was really great to read how to search by different keywords and fields.