Profiling your enemy

Criminologist Wayne Petherick has recorded some fascinating historical details about the science of criminal profiling in its earliest stages.  During World War II, for instance, the United States Office of Strategic Services (now the CIA) wanted to know more about Adolf Hitler:  What kind of person was he? What made him tick? What was he likely to do in the future?  What would he do in the face of defeat or death? How should we interrogate him if we captured him?  They asked psychiatrist Walter Langer to develop a psychological and behavioral profile of the infamous German fuher.

Here are a few of Langer’s conclusions about Hitler: Death through natural causes was unlikely since Hitler was in good health.  He would not seek refuge in another country because he saw himself as the savior of Germany.  Langer ruled out assassination, coup, and death in battle, and he believed that Hitler’s most likely response to defeat or capture would be suicide—which is exactly what happened in an underground bunker in 1945 when the fall of Germany was imminent.  The profiling of enemy military leaders continues today as a tool for predicting and counteracting an enemy’s moves.

One of the most famous profiles ever was done by James Brussels, the New York psychiatrist who profiled the “Mad Bomber of New York” in the 1950s.  Over an eight-year span, this criminal left thirty-two explosive packages across the city without being caught.  Based on an investigation of the crime scenes and the study of a number of letters the bomber had written to authorities, Brussels developed a profile of the suspect containing the following particulars: “Heavy-set…middle-aged…foreign-born…single, living with a sibling…paranoid…hates his father…obsessively loved by his mother…lives in Connecticut…and when you find him, chances are he will be wearing a double-breasted suit, buttoned.”

In the latter part of the twentieth century, the FBI developed its Behavioral Sciences Unit in Quantico, Virginia, to advance the art and science of profiling.  One television network had a science-based dramatic series called The Profiler in the late 1990s.  Without question, profiling has become a critical part of Crime Scene Investigation strategy.

David Jeremiah, Signs of Life, p. 139