Criminal Minds: The Beginnings of Behavioral Analysis
By Yasmine Myftija, Biology, 2021
Touting a legacy of 15 entertaining seasons on television, “Criminal Minds” centered around the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) and the agents that use behavioral science-based methods to track down heinous killers. You’ve probably watched it, or know someone who watches each episode with popcorn in hand. But how much do you really know about the Behavioral Analysis Unit?
The BAU was created in the early 1970s as an effort to curb the increased prevalence of homicides and sexual assaults occurring in the United States. It was founded by two trailblazing agents: Robert Ressler, a veteran who solved robberies, arsons, and homicides within his post in the Army, and John Douglas, a hostage negotiator for the FBI. The program’s main goal was to study incarcerated criminals in an effort to gain insights that would hopefully help prevent or solve future crimes. While the study of criminal behavior wasn’t new, the use of psychology to create profiles of a criminal was rarely used, if ever, and law enforcement relied primarily on hard evidence. In fact, the term “serial killer” didn’t exist until Ressler coined it to describe the pattern of multiple instances of murder in different locations over time, allowing for periods in which they would cool off and return to their lives.
While the study of criminal behavior wasn’t new, the use of psychology to create profiles of a criminal was rarely used, if ever, and law enforcement relied primarily on hard evidence.
A psychological profile is, by definition, a tool that helps law enforcement narrow a suspect pool; it provides a description of the type of suspected perpetrator based off of the evidence at a crime scene and the many clues left behind that reveal one’s behavioral patterns and personality. To build a basis for this system, Ressler and Douglas set out to meet with and study incarcerated killers such as Ed Kemper, the infamous “Co-Ed Killer” who inspired the character of Buffalo Bill in the film “Silence of the Lambs.” Kemper was eager to talk to the agents and provided insights into the minds of serial killers, including his proclivity to harm animals as a child, which paralleled that of others, and a deep-rooted childhood trauma traced back to his mother, which influenced his choice of victims. The two agents gathered information from serial killers and predators about their motives, how they planned crimes, the details of their crimes, and the disposal of evidence, amongst other topics such as childhood and family life.
It was through these interviews that Ressler and Douglas managed to begin the field of forensic psychology and create a basis of the three main types of perpetrators: organized offenders, disorganized offenders, and mixed offenders. The distinctions lay in the level of intelligence; for example, organized killers were described to be smarter, with a stable lifestyle, and a tendency to dispose of evidence. Disorganized killers had a lower intelligence, carried out their crimes with less forethought, often had a history of mental illness, and were more violent than their organized counterparts. The body of knowledge built through Ressler and Douglas’s interviews provided substantial evidence supporting Macdonald’s Triad, a theory from 1963 which linked pyromania, bedwetting past the usual age, and extreme cruelty to animals to particularly violent homicidal behavior.
Ressler and Douglas managed to begin the field of forensic psychology and create a basis of the three main types of perpetrators: organized offenders, disorganized offenders, and mixed offenders.
Furthermore, Ressler and Douglas’s work in the field revealed that the crime scene held more than physical evidence and could be helpful in determining the killer’s psychology. They may leave behind a signature, such as using a certain knot or harming the victim in a specific way, that may even indicate to the profiler a mental disturbance or personality type. In the end, they had interviewed 36 incarcerated criminals and, with the help of Ann Wolbert Burgess’s studies with sexual assault victims, compiled and created a working database.
Since Ressler and Douglas began their groundbreaking work, the Behavioral Analysis Unit has expanded immensely, including branches into violent extremism, terrorism, violent prison and street gangs, and hostage negotiations. It’s even been immortalized in another television show, Netflix’s “Mindhunter,” a fictionalized but mostly true account of Ressler and Douglas’s work.
