Archive through March 08, 2001

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Archive through March 08, 2001

Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Suspects: General Discussion : Can we end the hunt for the 'profile' of the Ripper?: Archive through March 08, 2001

Author: Paul Carpenter Monday, 11 September 2000 - 10:35 am
I am interested in points of view about the 'profiling' of serial killers - especially with attempts to profile JTR. I think that, for several reasons, attempts to frame the Ripper using the profiling paradigm are doomed to failure... Firstly, the pool of data used to establish the idea of profiling comes from a limited sample of American serial killers from the latter quarter of the twentieth century. Even if profiling is a valid approach, how is it possible to extrapolate this data to an unidentified serial killer in Victorian London? The differences in culture and society are surely too great to allow one blanket approach to be used. Without access to the living minds of people of that time, we simply do not know how different experience was. However, even on the balance of probability we can contend that differences in culture and society as a whole are both likely to be influential and markedly different between the era of JTR and the era of the serial killers who have been researched. Secondly, it is clear from even a cursory examination of the cases of a few serial killers that the profiling paradigm simply does not work. Not only has it failed to identify a single killer (a fact oft-quoted on these boards) but the differnces between serial killers are just as striking as the similarities. I beleive that the whole idea stems from the human need to see patterns to rationalize the world. Just as we look into the night sky and see constellations that resemble earthly creatures, psychologists look into the mind and think they see patterns. Things that belong outside these patterns are relegated in the order of importance. (I don't intend to go into any real detail - I am sure you are all adult enough to look at the research and draw your own conclusions.) It is interesting, in view of this, that by far the weakest link in Gainey and Evans reasoning about Tumblety are the sections in which they try to frame him in the context of the classic profile of a serial killer. Despite the fact that he was much older, of the wrong sexuality, a high-profile public figure etc etc, (contrary to the 'classic' profile) they make ungainly attempts to lend validity to their theory through a process of selective presentation and wishful thinking. As we do not know who JTR was (and even if we do we have scant record of his life, and no account of his mental state beyond the writings of contemporary physicians whose approach is now probably considered obsolete) I contend that the profiling route is a hindrance to the investigation of the Ripper crimes, and it is time we stopped using it as a tool in the investigation. Looking forward to your posts, Carps
Author: Jill De Schrijver Monday, 11 September 2000 - 11:50 am
Hi Paul, One comment on your point one: the differences in social conditions and culture. Yes, maybe what a person had to live through is something else than we have to nowadays, and dogma's have shifted. But the working of our brain hasn't changed that rapid. Our look on psycho-analyses and human pathology has changed rapidly, we know more now than 100 years back, but how the mind works has stayed much the same from the moment the homo-sapiens walked this earth. Especially those mind-reflexes that protect the individual from traumatic experience. The younger a trauma is experienced, and the less alternative-reflexes were learned before the trauma, the more it will try to escape with disociative thinking, a very primitive reaction. Profiling is not only based on modern sk's but also on other criminal-profiles like serial rapists, pyromaniacs, pedophiles which have the violent dissociative behaviour in common. A lot of how a serial killers mind works can also be found in that of a rapist for example. What differs is not the dissociative reflex, but how the reflects takes its output form. So if this profile can transcedend other criminal behaviour, than it can transcedent cultural differences too. Greetings, Jill
Author: alex chisholm Monday, 11 September 2000 - 03:55 pm
Hi Paul Having long held similar doubts about the value of later C20 profiling for late C19 subjects, I have to broadly agree with your above post. Jill is no doubt correct that the actual working of the brain has a part to play, but equally there can be little doubt that prevailing culture has a substantial role in shaping any individual, whether serial killer or saint. As the culture of 1880s London differs greatly from that prevailing in the later C20, I personally see little value in trying to impose anachronistic profiles of serial criminals (whether murderer, rapist or arsonist) onto any possible Whitechapel murderer. Best Wishes alex
Author: David M. Radka Monday, 11 September 2000 - 07:36 pm
Alex, Which is not to say that some other epistemological center could apply to the crimes. eh? David
Author: alex chisholm Monday, 11 September 2000 - 10:07 pm
Quite right David, It is not to say that some other epistemological centre could apply to the crimes. hmm? alex
Author: Jill De Schrijver Tuesday, 12 September 2000 - 03:36 am
Hi all, Although I wouldn't throw away the child with the bathwater, I totally agree that profiling as sole basis to track a killer would not suffice. Paul is absolutely right that "...it failed to identify a single killer". Because profiles are based on the things we know, not what we don't. A profile is only a probability based on how the case 'appears'. And it is very difficult to extrapolate into the future on something based from the past, whith only a defect amount of knowledge. It describes a part of the character of a person, it can't name somebody. But still it is a tool that together with other data and tactics used can help. Not as sole basis, but just as a peace of the puzzle that indicates where it will, in all probability, be best to look for the other pieces. And since I'm of the opinion that we will never name JtR with even 50% certainty, it will be a profile that will bring us closest to 'what' he was. About the people who use a profile to loaden the burden on a particular suspect in this case. Everything in this case (from profiles, poetry, diaries, letters, memmoirs, occupation, madness, suicide, living in the area, having visited the area, having killed... everything) is used to back-up a suspect-choice. As long as it is done without ignoring other facts, I don't have a big problem with it. Otherwise we might end our speculations right now becaues we can't use anything anymore to base our suspicions on. Greetings, Jill
Author: Paul Carpenter Tuesday, 12 September 2000 - 05:07 am
Hi, Thanks for your comments. Firstly, I agree with you, Jill, that the workings of the mind itself can have a role to play in the creation of a killer. Anyone of us could be a faulty gland away from a killing spree as far as we can tell, and I certainly wouldn't contend otherwise. However, I believe that you can see sufficient differences between modern behaviour and behaviour in the Victorian era to conclude that modern psychological analysis simply doesn't fit the Victorian mind. As an example, how many people "fall down in a violent fit" or faint when under emotional duress? According to contemporary literature, this is what people did when faced with stressful situations. Of course there are still such behaviours manifesting themselves today, and always will, but they are simply not as prevalent. From this, I would argue that it is hard to argue with the notion that popular belief and cultural trend have an indelible effect on behaviour. Given that this is the case, I feel that maybe we can conclude that profiles based on modern types simply won't transpose, and so is more or less valueless in this context. I would also like to reiterate my point that whereas we can posibly pinpoint an individual's movements, appearance and so on, the evidence at hand about their characters is so scant as to be worthless. I just don't believe that we will ever have sufficient knowledge to even consider profiling as a tool. I'll admit to a certain scepticism about the approach itself, so my take on this is probably biased, but I feel that a move away from the speculative branches of this inquiry back to the evidence itself is probably the only way forward. There's a 'smoking gun' out there somewhere... Anyway, time for a nice cup of tea. And possibly a biscuit. Cheers, Paul
Author: Jill De Schrijver Tuesday, 12 September 2000 - 08:31 am
Hi Paul, all, Ok let's debate the effect of culture and society on mind workings then. I'll explain more "the younger the person is confonted with trauma, and/or the less alternatives for handling this trauma is learned the more chance the mind will choose a primitive escape-reaction". In the case of a sk, a rapist, childmolester, arcenist, this is dissociative thinking. First let us look at what dissociative thinking is. It is an escaping behaviour into a fantasy world to let out frustrations and still function outwardly as society wants you to. It's personality that influences the form of the fantasy. After a certain time this fantasy world can totally take over the mind, especially when the trauma's are big or not coped with any other way, and then the person will try to impose his fantasies on reality to handle this mindfilling. This dissociative behaviour can be very dangerous when the fantasy is a very violent one. When violent a lot of hate is looking for its revenge. The direction of the hate, directs who will be violated. If you loath yourself totally, you'll be somesorts of a massochist. When you hate women, you'll rape or kill them in you fantasies and eventually for real. Secondly let us look at the factors in my sentence: age, personality, trauma, alternatives learned. Only one factor is totally independent of outside impulses: AGE PERSONALITY is mostly inherent to the person, but is also formed by trauma, family, and others, especially those of the same age. On large scale a personality is less formed by its society. Still I agree that there is an influence on the personality of the sk. The TRAUMA's are almost totally oustide impulses, except that for one person a happening will be regarded as trauma, by another less. But I think we can agree that harassment, orphaning, beatings and molesting, unfeeling parents, rape are trauma's that every person would experience as traumatic, especially when repeated. Also you can't reject the fact that the same trauma's existed in the Victorian Industrial age. Last but not least there is the last factor ALTERNATIVES LEARNED. Mostly they are teached or stimulated by the direct family and by society. But the learning of alternatives is dependent on the capacity of the person to learn them. The example of people falling into a fit, especially women is a very nice one. This neurotic reaction is a primitive one. It's literal escapism. The society in the previous age encouraged this reaction, like the histeric reaction, especially with women. Society encouraged also with men to keep your cool and just struggle along. Thus encouraged blocking mechanisms, primitive ways out, more. Dissociative thinking is one of the possible results by blocking. Let's review the factors again with all this in mind for a mind-working of a human in Victorian age: 'AGE' had the same amount of influence as it has nowadays, and was as independent. 'PERSONALITY' is as individual as now. 'TRAUMA' stays also the same, in relation to the sort of trauma, and its influence on the personality. 'ALTERNATIVES LEARNED' has changed in content: primitive escape reactions were encouraged, less alternatives were shown by society. From this point of view, the society in 1888 would result in the more archetype killer than our time of day, since both school, parents, children centres and society in general now, with the breakdown of archetypes and taboo's, will bend the archetype. We safely then can assume that yes dissociative thinking would be a many times occuring reaction, especially with men. And that it's formation is very archetype like. Greetings, Jill
Author: David M. Radka Tuesday, 12 September 2000 - 11:10 am
Two things that are really the same thing: 1. Nazism. The idea that the observed behaviors, inherited characteristics, and history of the Jews constitutes an archetype, which in turn is interpreted as inferior, dangerous, evil, or counterproductive to society as a whole, justifying appropriate action. 2. Femi-Nazism. The idea that the traumas, life histories, dissociative thinking, blocking, and personality formation of certain men constitutes an archetype of men, which is in turn interpreted as inferior, dangerous, evil, or counterproductive to society as a whole, justifyinjg appropriate action. My life's wish is that the people who confidently lend whatever odds and ends come to mind the stature of an archetype must get into bed and sleep with it, not just toss it out there to see what effect it may have. There would be a lot fewer monsters around for us to have to deal with. David
Author: Michael Lyden Tuesday, 12 September 2000 - 03:31 pm
David, we either appreciate the value of profiling techniques or we floccinaucinihilipilificate. Regards, Mick Lyden
Author: David M. Radka Tuesday, 12 September 2000 - 04:10 pm
eh? David
Author: Simon Owen Tuesday, 12 September 2000 - 06:03 pm
I don't think that the question of whether the FBI profile of Jack is wrong or not is important , it is HOW WRONG which is important. Is it entirely wrong or only wrong in certain elements : if the latter then this would eliminate many candidates. Remember the profile is based on generalised assumptions about late 20th century western males , how much of this applies to what happened a century earlier ?
Author: Alegria Tuesday, 12 September 2000 - 07:33 pm
Two things that are really the same thing: 1. Idiot 2. David Radka
Author: Jill De Schrijver Wednesday, 13 September 2000 - 03:22 am
David 'Archetype' was not meant in the sence of archetype like men, but archetype profile, aka the general profile rules. Although I wouldn't make them law, without enough, if possible, behaviour research on JtR. I don't see the archetype as inferior. I used the wording 'especially with men', because extreme dissociative behaviour stems from severe blocking as escape, which in those days was more the encouraged tactic with men, while with women in Victorian age 'fits' and 'histeric shrieking' were encouraged. The last is an expressive escape and thus helps relieve the anxiety immediately. Which of course doesn't mean that a blockage on pain once in a while is negative. 'It's formation is archetype like': I'm talking about the formation of dissociative thinking that is archetype like, not the formation of men. If I use the words 'primitive' reaction, I'm not making any judgement than that is a natural first one, and they certainly have their advantages; panic for example helps to react immediately in a crisis situation, just when action is required. Actually a majority of people have some degree of dissociative thinking, which is no problem at all, as long as you don't lock yourself out. Dissociative thinking is positive in the way, that it helps to extrapolate situations you don't like and imagine how you best react to it. Also it's what you do when in contact with people, step outside (figurally) yourself and observe yourself relating, sort of projecting. This can be very beneficial to help you relate. Greetings, Jill
Author: Paul Carpenter Wednesday, 13 September 2000 - 05:36 am
Blimey! Thanks for the full and detailed postings on what has turned into interesting debate! Although I initially thought "whoah - nothing to do with JtR" I think a proper debate will definitely help us clarify some aspects of the investigation. Firstly, I will restate and clarify my own stance with regards to the field of psychology as a whole. Of all the scientific disciplines, I feel that psychology is the youngest, the least tested and the least testable, and the most hypothetical. That is not to say that I suspect it be valueless, rather that it is - as a science in its relative infancy - not a source on which we can have absolute faith. Whilst this is a debate that is too huge and complex to possibly consider here with any adequacy, I make the point just to illustrate the stance from which I come. So, down to brass tacks, it is certainly demonstrable that not even all modern serial killers can be said to conform to any archetype. Not all those who are abused as children turn into serial killers, rapists, abusers or arsonists, just as not every criminal was abused as a child. Some killers (such as Bundy or the Yorkshire Ripper) are popular, public figures who seem to operate perfectly well in normal society on a day to day basis, whilst others fit the Gein stereotype of secretive misanthropic misfits. I think that this is very telling. Psychology sees things in terms of 'archetypes', and big constructs such as 'age' 'personality' 'trauma' and so on. To some degree, this reminds me of the science of the early Greeks, who believed that everything belonged to one of four 'elements' (fire, air, earth and water). In fact, this is now seen as reductionist approach in a world where, increasingly, the other sciences are realising the interdependence of their respective disciplines, and that even the most fundamental aspects of the universe are complicated syntheses of many underlying, and often unsuspected elements. I suspect that increasingly, psychology as a discipline will have to accept that its 'big ideas' (those of Freud and Jung) will go the same way as those of Newton and Galileo in physics. They will still be useful tools in general, but will be found wanting in specific instances. Against this backdrop, twenty years of research into a handful of killers from a specific environment is a slender basis to be creating any sort of archetype. If trauma is a component part of human existence then why do certain societies simply not throw up serial killers (for example, Japan)? This can only be because childhood trauma can be overcome by wider societal influences, trauma doesn't create criminals, or trauma isn't a part of human existence in certain societies. if we can find examples at hand so readily in the modern world where it would be possible to do proper research, then we would be foolish to be so sure of ourselves with the case of a society in the past. Realistically, our knowledge of Victorian London is anecdotal evidence and some statistics. How we can possibly expect to identify a serial killer using psychological evidence at this remove is hard to see. Even if we do unequivocally identify JtR, we will never be able to ascertain the events of his childhood, the traumas he faced, or the attitude of his parents and his friends. There is enough disagreement over the psychological makeup of contemporary people who are accessible and well-documented, without being plunged into a morass of second-hand evidence from a different century. My guess is those things will remain forever incalculable. Anyway, thanks for reading. Time for my pill, Paul
Author: Simon Owen Wednesday, 13 September 2000 - 03:34 pm
I set up a board called ' Jack the Serial Killer ' a while back , based on the writings of British profiler David Canter. Given the nature of this debate , just thought it might be useful to people. The next step here is to examine the FBI profile in detail and debate various aspects of it.
Author: Jill De Schrijver Friday, 15 September 2000 - 06:39 am
Hi Paul, I agree with you totally that psychology is a young science, and since our brain is one of the organs that scientists least know of, also hormonic and other chemical impulses are an almost unexplored area. Psychology is for the majority based on the few empirical data with subjective subjects done. And I understand you can have your doubts if the empirical data used for sk profiles, would only be data from Sk's they have caught and who are willing to discuss their murders in thruth. But knowledge about dissociative behaviour is based on more than that alone. Almost any violent compulsatory repetetive behaviour finds it roots in it. Almost anybody who has been victimised repetitevely shows its symptoms. And I fully agree that you can't put your whole trust on it (As far as I have heard no pro-profiler ever suggested that). Still it's not because you can't rely on it 100%, you have to ignore it in total. For example I agree that people have the right to try and investigate Barnett as a suspect if he fits a profile (this even remains to be proved), but I would not agree with the claim that he is the most likely suspect solely on that basis. I believe that in my post of September 12, I explitely made clear, that the 'terms' are interrelated with each other. Thus for your amusement I post this relationshipmodel of how trauma has its effects on people. Age isn't influenced by anything, but has its influence on the person, on his capabilities to learn different cope methods and the use of primal ones, and on how a person perceives trauma. A person, in a family, relating to peer groups and living in a society, experience many things in his environment and relationships and copes with these experiences. How he copes with it is influenced both by his environment and even independent of his age his personal capabilities (chemistry, brain, hormone deficiencies) to learn from the experiences. Experiences are both created by the environment and perceived by the person. And the same experience can be perceived otherwise by the environment than by the person. So profile psychology can never be seen as pure personalit, but is of course related to natural biology, chemistry, neurology, sociology and pedagogics. Now take this model back to 1888 and to serial killers: You can of course say that society was different then. But that doesn't mean you can start ignoring the psychology part. I've only pointed out that society then encouraged many ways of primal coping-> thus reinforcing the power of for example dissociative behaviour. And thus another society doesn't rule out one of the basic behaviours of a sk. Not every abused child becomes a criminal, and not every sk was abused-opinion: Absolutely right. Trauma doesn't always mean sexual of physical abuse. A compulsary criminal may even not ever have been confronted with anything objectively traumatic. If we look at the model a person can experience things as traumatic that aren't regarded as traumatic at all by us. Loving overprotection by parents can influence the perceivement of trauma with a child. Later of course it is said, by objective people, that nothing ever happened to the child, although the child was in fact traumatised. A person doesn't even have to be confronted with trauma, or perceive something as trauma. His incapability to cope with any experience in any other way than dissociative, for some reason we don't know yet, can be enough. The importance of all these 'terms' is dependent of the angle we take for considering a profile. Are we looking at a name and try to prove he was a serial killer, and thus had extreme dissociative behaviour, by his past -> mostly done by searching for trauma's. Or are we looking at the case, and try to prove the killer's method by accepting that dissociative behaviour was his, whatever the past. All of you know I take the latter approach. Most of us do here, pro- or anti-profile. That's why I discount the importance of society and time, because that's only usefull to explain why somebody shows this behaviour, which in this case is certainly unsolvable. But to throw away the behaviour itself seems an extreme position to take. I admit this behaviour can have different outputs, depending on the character. If this seems hingy to you: the only thing still partly left to us, 112 years later, is the output: the victims and how they were killed and mutilated. We have the basic problematic behaviour and we have a particular output of it. Lastly the argument against profiling is that it has never helped to name a serial killer. The same argument also goes for the scientififc forensic material nowadays. A majority of serial killers have been found by good luck, and many times a luck unrelated to the case itself: a jailor with a kind heart listening to the ramblings of a petty thief for example. And many are still not found, however huge the forensic material they have in the cupboards, no matter how many helpful witnesses, no matter what huge files the police have in their computers,... and no matter what the profile. So I can as easily suggest to you all, to just sit in the couch and wait for our luck to come round, and let another diary fall in our lap. Greetings, Jill Simon - I didn't found your board here with a search: what's the link?
Author: Diana Friday, 15 September 2000 - 10:16 pm
I'm wondering how much is really trauma. I have read of at least 2 SKs that had normal siblings.
Author: Diana Friday, 15 September 2000 - 10:19 pm
Oops! one of the ones I was thinking of was Richard Speck and he wasn't technically an SK. Come to think of it the other one I had in mind was the Gainesville Ripper and he wasn't an SK either. I believe they were both spree killers.
Author: Midori Green Saturday, 16 September 2000 - 09:44 am
I have only one addition to make to this discussion in reference to Paul's post on the 13th. In fact, there are serial killers in Japan. The most notorious in recent years was a man who abducted and murdered 4 young girls. He was found to have a collection of over 5,000 pornographic video tapes, including many S&M and child porn titles. I don't know all the details of the case, but the most outstanding thing about him was how non-outstanding he was. However, he does fit certain profiles or stereotypes. He was a quiet, well-mannered, loner type, who had great difficulty forming adult relationships of any kind. There was also a case here not too long ago, of a young boy in Kobe, under 17 (?) I think, who attacked 3 other young people over the course of a few months. 2 of them died. Subsequent investigations revealed that he had begun killing small animals in the months prior to his first attack on a person. I believe this same behavior can be found in the histories of some other serial killers. Besides showing that Japan is not immune to this particular crime, these two cases, admittedly a grossly small sample, illustrate that while profiling isn't anything like an exact science, it has been able to produce some factors to look for and can aid in investigations. As long as police don't rely on it too much and neglect anything that doesn't "match", profiling can be a useful tool. Either that, or its all just whistling in the dark, and we will never have any clue why some people do the things they do. I'm new to this board, so as we say in Japan, "yoroshiku onegaishimasu", which translates very roughly as, "please look kindly on me." Hmmmm, somehow doesn't come across the same in English, but you get the idea. Midori
Author: Diana Saturday, 16 September 2000 - 12:19 pm
Midori, your input can be very valuable to this discussion. Much has been said about how Western European culture has changed over the last hundred years so that the data collected in the late 20th century about serial killers would not apply to 19th century London. We can't go back and profile 19th century SKs in Europe, but we can see if the characteristics hold true across current cultures. The culture of Japan is probably different enough from that of the West so that examining Japanese SKs to see if they fit Western profiles of SKs would tell us if time and culture make a difference, how much of a difference, and in what areas. Please share more details. I look forward to your input! Thank You.
Author: Diana Sunday, 17 September 2000 - 09:33 am
Midori, I have been thinking about this. It might help to arrive at a cross-cultural understanding of the issue of killing in the broadest sense. If we understand the cultural backdrop better we can understand how much it affects the behavior of SKs. In America where I live the predominant religions condemn killing severely. I would defer to Rabbi Leen to speak more authoritatively than I as to the Jewish religion but I know they don't approve of it. As a Christian I can affirm that the Christian religion strongly condemns killing. There are discussions among groups as to killing in a just war, executing murderers, and abortion. These discussions rise to a fever pitch precisely because there is such a strong aversion to killing. Civil government provides strong sanctions for those convicted of killing: sometimes years in prison or even life in prison and sometimes the death penalty. Some Americans get frustrated because we also have a strong aversion to punishing an innocent person. For that reason our legal system makes it very hard to convict a person of killing. The proof has to be very strong and meet many legal tests. For this reason killers sometimes go free. The media, particularly television and the movies have dramatized killing over and over. Most of the time the implication of the story is that the killer is a very evil person who will be caught and punished at the end. Nevertheless there is a lot of debate as to the violence of these dramatizations and a fear that they may stir the unstable and youth to rash and tragic acts. Much of rap music glamorizes killing and extols violence. I personally find this repugnant as do a lot of older Americans. Violence and other evils in the entertainment industry have become a political issue in the current presidential campaign. A lot of Americans feel strongly about it. Having said that, we have a problem in America with violence. One cause is drugs which crept into our culture in a major way in the sixties. Racial minorities in America have not had fair treatment. They have been shortchanged with regard to education, jobs, housing, and health care. They have not been treated with the basic dignity that every human being deserves. Their frustration sometimes drives them to violence. Decent Americans are working to change the unfairness that is a root cause of this problem. We still have some Americans who are racial bigots. We have a lot of work to do. We have a growing problem in America with divorce. Many children are raised in one-parent families. Many children grow up without ever knowing their fathers. This causes great instability and poverty in their lives and can lead to their not developing good character which of course leads to violence. I hope I have succeeded in giving you a picture of my culture as it relates to the issue of killing. We are not free of problems but we do have goals we are striving for.
Author: Midori Green Monday, 18 September 2000 - 09:59 am
Diana, thanks for your welcome message. Of course, the same feelings and prohibitions exist here in regard to murder, and although the religious component is different, all religions condemn murder. The predominate religion is buddhism, of which there are many different sects. And while most people claim to belong to one sect or another, religion is not practiced here in a way that would look familiar to a person from a Western culture. In fact, it is a subject far too complex to go into in this particular forum. However, the following may be of some interest to you. Japan is still very much a "shame based" culture. This is changing a little as Japan becomes more and more Westernized, but this concept of shame is very deeply ingrained, and I doubt that it will change very much anytime soon. While we have the same external prohibitions on murder, the rule of law and religion, as in America, the internal prohibitions are often even stronger. The role of the family, neighborhood, and society in general in controlling an individual's behavior is very strong. There is immense pressure on a person to conform to the group ethos. The actions of an individual reflect upon the entire community, and the family most of all. This is one reason that the suicide rate in Japan is high. Rather than bring shame to one's family, or even in some cases, one's company, a man might kill himself instead to accept individual responsibility. It is only my uneducated opinion, but I sometimes wonder if the impulse to strike out at others, even to murder, isn't redirected to destroying oneself instead. There was a case here about a month ago which illustrates these points (pressure to conform, shame, etc.) very well. A high school boy who was being constantly bullied by his classmates (bullying is a huge problem here these days. Of course, it's used as a way to get the individual to conform, and believe it or not, is actually supported by some ignorant adults as a valid method), finally snapped and attacked some of them with a baseball bat. Thinking he had killed them, in fact he hadn't, he rushed home and proceeded to kill his mother. He told the police he did it to spare her the shame and trouble his crime would have caused her, and no doubt the responsibility as well. It's difficult to imagine such an excuse being given in a Western country. Midori
Author: Jill De Schrijver Monday, 18 September 2000 - 11:31 am
Hi Midori, Welcome here, interesting philosophy subject. Unwilling to take responsibility for your own deeds seems a common thing in crime. In the example with the kid who eventually killed his mother. Many parents kill their partner and children, and after that themselves because for example they have debts. Maybe it is not said this way in the suicide note, but essentially they want to spare their family disgrace. Greetings, Jill
Author: NickDanger Tuesday, 19 September 2000 - 01:32 am
Hi Midori and all, As to your point about the young man who killed his mother to spare her the shame of having 'killed' his tormentors, and the stated unlikelihood of this excuse being used in a Western country, Charles Whitman, the Texas Tower killer, gave exactly that excuse for having killed his mother and his wife. Best regards, Nick
Author: Midori Green Tuesday, 19 September 2000 - 09:02 am
Hi Nick and Jill, Thanks for the info. This idea of shame is more cross cultural than I knew. Midori
Author: Jill De Schrijver Tuesday, 19 September 2000 - 11:36 am
Hi Midori, In any society (based on age, job, living place, ...) conforming to groups is an important thing. Shame always has to do with your own individual self-image against what the group wants you to be or do. Although the Western world like Europe and America praise the rights and importance of the individual sky high, there still is group conformity expected. Feelings of shame will follow it like a shadow. The important difference, as far I can comprehend, between Japan and the Western world will be to what degree one has to conform and on what. I can name an example, I think, as a difference even between America and Europe: smoking sigarettes. Or going monokini on a public beach, I think. ;-) Greetings, Jill
Author: Davidoz Monday, 08 January 2001 - 06:34 pm
Having been intimately involved in the development of 'profiling' since 1982, with the Yorkshire Ripper case, I have established one important fact about 'profiling' suspects. IT DOES'NT WORK ON ORGANISED MURDER! We don't play that game any more in this case.
Author: Trevor James Loos Wednesday, 24 January 2001 - 06:41 pm
The fact of the matter is, Jack the Ripper was not from England. He was a disorganized Asocial maniac. If we look at the case without profiling, how will we get into the mind of the killer? Organized or unorganized murder profiling has helped solve all kinds of cases. I think that we should us profiling to help bring this murder to light.
Author: Jon Wednesday, 24 January 2001 - 08:21 pm
I think we can safely assume your "the fact of the matter is"......is only a figure of speach. Kindly wake me up when they actually catch someone useing profiling.
Author: Paul Carpenter Monday, 29 January 2001 - 08:02 am
Like most other methodologies suggested to identify JtR, the real problem is that people will use the basic premise of profiling to help them 'identify' their favourite suspect. Like I think I said here earlier, 'First American Serial Killer' was very convincing until the authors started to try and box Tumblety into the 'classic profile' of the serial killer. Unless it is demonstrably true that all Serial Killers (or "organized killers", or "sexual killers" or any of the other suggested alternatives) can be shown to share definite characteristics, then there will always be too much doubt in the identification of JtR through this methodology. Even if all serial killers can be shown to share a particular set of characteristics, it will only help us if it is something that we happen to know about the suspects for definite - which in this case and at this remove we probably never will. However, I think from reading the posts here, that the idea of profiling per se, is potentially not as empty as perhaps I thought. I would like to hear more about ideas of profiling from different cultures... any takers? Perhaps someone should create a seperate board for this discussion, or point me to an existing one? Cheers Carps
Author: David M. Radka Friday, 02 February 2001 - 11:04 pm
Hi! Even though I've got so much work to do I'm pulling out my chest hairs one-by-one, I still took a few moments to give a first reading of the Douglas/Olshaker book. I think it is very good with respect to some of the chapters, like Lindbergh and JonBenet, but less good with respect to the Ripper. I think they're missing some of the points with respect to him; it just doesn't seem they've digested all the evidence. There seems to be too much reliance on what Mr. Fido thinks. There must have been some contact between them and he. But there are other interpretations, and other good writers of the case. They seem to be sold absolutely on the idea he was a disorganized lust killer, yet many of the things he did took planning, intelligence, and calmness. Roy Hazelwood, who worked with Douglas, is to my mind off base when he said "We're not dealing with a rocket scientist here"--I think they are almost echoing him in their book. No explanation is offered why he targeted the uterus, other than that he had a curiosity about how the human body worked. No explanation why he left Mary Kelly's uterus under her head. No explanation of the graffito, the marks on Eddowes' face, what the Lusk letter was all about (you'd think they'd at least say something about this, since they also say he wouldn't be inclined to communicate), and many other points. I thought of so many different things when I first read their JtR chapter, I'm going to have to expand my paper to address them. Not to say it isn't a fine book, de riguer. Getting to be fun! David
Author: James Harper Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 01:13 pm
I think both psychology and offender profiling have become victims of the same phenomena. As soon as either became accepted as a 'science' and available to the general public, then it is suddenly assumed that it follows and 'a+b=c' formula and that it is somehow concrete and specific. In reality, to my mind at least, psychology and related fields are not sciences and cannot possibly be treated as such. I believe offender profiling is very useful; however, it has not been so far, primarily (I suspect) because it is not been used properly. The original forms for police officers to fill in ran to well over a hundred pages and thousands of questions. These I think would have been fairly exhaustive and of great use. However (reasonably enough) many police officers were reluctant to spend several hours filling in the information. The other problem I perceive is that profiling is an intuitive process, although perhaps not so much as Thomas Harris would have us believe. It isn't the kind of think you can teach from a textbook, and is highly interpretative and subjective. For this reason it has been given a bad rap, because you can't simply thrust facts into a computer and be given a name and a shoe size. this is somewhat unfair. To say that offender profiling has failed to catch anyone is not accurate and again unfair. Police were lead to the perpetrator of a number of bombings in NYC thanks to an early attempt at profiling. More recently and English rapist and serial killer Richard Duffy was succesfully tracked down after a psychological profile. These attempts were not purely psychological efforts; they also took into account physical evidence that on it's own would not have amounted to a definite break. Together with psychological deatils, however, it allowed police to drastically reduce the number of suspects. Besides it does seem to me that many people have a hard time accepting that profiling isn't an exact science and hasn't totally replaced standard police work. So what? Some people want it too easy. There's never going to be a scientific equation for catching serial killers, and the police need all the help they can get.
Author: James Harper Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 01:20 pm
I must also add, for the benefit of the man who claimed to have worked on the yorkshire ripper case- Surely he must know that profiling was not used in the Ripper case, in favour of good old-fashioned police work, something that hindered the investigation because quite frankly the police in charge of the case were a bunch of old-fashioned northern types busy acting like Dixon of Dock Green instead of dragging their mentality into the twentieth century and trying to modernise police work. The Yorkshire Ripper investigation was a fine example of fumbling incompetence and primitive methods. I know, let's get one woman to search through thousands of car licence plates (by hand, because naturally a COMPUTER wouldn't work) and then drag her away just before she gets to the killer's car. Miracle of police work there. I'll calm down and have a cup of tea now.
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 03:28 pm
Dear James, What you say makes a great deal of sense...the northern 'Ripper' case, like the southern Ripper, has its madcap moments. And the officer in charge still believed - unto his grave - that they had the wrong man. Still, all's well that ends well, I say. Love, Rosemary
Author: Martin Fido Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 03:45 pm
A point I've made on another board: John Douglas and Mark Olshaker surveyed ALL the Ripper literature - (I've seen Olshaker's enormous library!) - made their decisions and wrote their chapter before they made any contact with me. Then they contacted me and asked if I would read their chapter for accuracy. I had no idea how it evaluated my work until I saw it, and realizing that any acknowledgement subsequently could embarrass me, I retained their ms chapter with all my emendations on it exactly as I faxed it to Olshaker, so that in case of any suggestion that I influenced them I can demonstrate that I didn't touch any of their argumentative matter, whether connected with my work or not. I only corrected factual details (and the occasional typo or grammatical or stylistic slip). On 'offender profiling' in general, it doesn't seem to be sufficiently noted that this broad term is bracketing in an awful lot of things. There is the mass of pychological information and early life patterning gleaned from the original Ressler-Douglas interviews, which, at least in Ressler's mind, culminated in the 'organized/disorganized' distinction, which, in turn, proved so inflexible that the 'mixed' variant had to be introduced.... which makes one wonder a little about the usefulness of the original distinction. As far as all the opinion about early sadism toward animals, probable violent offences, and experience of child abuse goes, the query above as to whether Victorian social conditions wouldn't have made some sort of difference is obviously valid - especially given the sort of multi-occupancy (including animal occupancy) insanitory and incest-encouraging slum life described by Engels in 'The Condition of the Working Classes in England'. I doubt whether John Douglas and Roy Hazelwood would have any argument about that, whatsoever. Neither is inclined to make exaggerated claims for their techniques. Hazelwood in particular has said that every success should be banked at once to compensate for the inevitable failures! But they have moved on substantially from the early 'psychological profiling' to Criminal Identification Analysis. Much of this careful observation of (as far as possible) EVERY detail at a crime scene, and deciding what it implies about the perpetrator, is a sort of revived and sensible Sherlock Holmesing. Cf the way first the police looked at the sites of the early 'railway rapes; then David Canter drew them on transparent celluloid flap sheets and revealed that they circled the home of John Duffy. (I was reminded of my own study of Black Lion Yard showing the centrality of Nathan Kaminsky's home to the Ripper sites). You comment on intuitiveness: well, the traditional and often very successful 'copper's hunch' is intuition, based on experience. (Think of Sir Peter Imbert's observation that by today's laws he wouldn't be able to order that a students' car be sawn apart as he once did in Dover, discovering at once the large cargo smuggled dope that a sixth sense had told him they were concealing). You or I are pretty unlikely to be very accurate about whether a person is lying or concealing some illicit possession. A police officer with ten years experience interviewing drug dealers and users is more likely to have an intuitive perception of body language and the like which he may not analyse, but hard experience of failure as well as success has trained to be jolly accurate. David Canter, originally an environmental psychologist, is now trying very hard to analyse and computerise the different components in such coppers' hunches, with the hope that a fine-tuned tool extrapolating the maximum high-probability information from various kinds of evidence may be produced. To those who don't understand the bases of his work it seems meaningless gobbledygook. But to those who realize that his first and most famous 'offender profile' used computer stats to pull John Duffy to the top of the pile from somewhere below the 800 mark among 1500 suspects, it's not so stupid. Canter's careful modesty about that achievement, by the way, and his insistence that this was his first case and he knew very little about what he was doing, should be offset against the current criticism levelled at him for accepting the police conclusion, reached before he entered the case, which led to dropping investigation of Duffy's accomplice David Mulcahy from the murder enquiries. The other noted British profiler, Paul Britton, is completely different. He is, if you like, 'psychologically intuitive'. He contemplates the detailed evidence of the crime, and tries to determine what sort of mental world the perpetrator inhabits. In particular, he is likely to ask what sort of fantasies a bizarre murderer is fulfilling. (I deliberately used that unusual adjective so that nobody is tempted to wind Jon up into fresh rounds of 'what is a sexual/serial killer and was the Ripper one'! I hope we can all agree he was bizarre; and if you don't agree, please don't ever try to meet me or any of my family or friends!) Again, Britton's glaring and notorious apparent failures (the Colin Pitchfork and Colin Stagg cases) should be offset against his remarkable early successes, which encouraged the police to have faith in him and gave him the sort of experience in interviewing serious offenders that had been at the basis of Douglas and Ressler's original work. Bear in mind how right he was to say that Fred West's house would have to be taken apart once the bodies had been found in the garden. I should say that my own view is that this sort of psychological analysis is most likely to prove successful when there is written work from th perptrator available for analysis. This was the basis of the famous ur-profile on the Con-Edison bomber. Douglas's analysis of the Unabomber manifesto is outstanding - anad of course, he doesn't pretend that it solved the case. Publishing the manifesto so that family recognized Ted's style was all-important. It is, perhaps, too little recognized that the more psychological type of profiling is not usually primarily intended to say what sort of perp the police should be looking for. It is more likely to be used to advise police on tactics - should a perpetrator's vanity be flattered with publicity; his weakness pampered with 'understanding'; his former crime sites watched for his obsessive return to gloat. It is in recommending such detective methods that the biggest successes have been scored. It's a shame that the British profilers seem almost as competitive and rude about each other as Ripper Board posters. Britton is brutally dismissive of Canter, who more or less declines to recognize his existence. It's also a great pity that Canter was introduced to the Ripper under the aegis of Feldman, and in consequence of his first and formative briefings on the case is, in my view, far too sympathetic to Maybrickism, and, not being a psychological writing-analysing profiler, the wrong one to head up the psychologists' conference which examined the diary. I'm not sure what is meant by 'the man who was supposed to have worked on the Yorkshire Ripper case'. One of the senior officers on that case was on a course at Bramshill Police College when Ressler and Douglas were giving a course of lectures there (not as a part of his programme). On some one else's recommendation, they met him in a pub for exploratory discussions as to whether they had anything to offer. Ressler in particular saw at once that he completely distrusted them as some sort of Yankee voodoo: they, for their part, were extremely doubtful that they could say anything of real value with the limited case information he brought in his head and in the few documents he had with him. They were, however, confident that the killer was working with the use of his own wheels, and probably used them professionally. Thus a trucker, a post office van driver, or even a police patrol car man were posiblities. They were also quite sure from the type of murder sites that the notorious tape and letters were not the work of the murderer. They did not prepare a formal report. They held a conversation in the pub. They felt they swung their man to some sympathy, but they did not know that what they said was never fed into the inquiry at all. The idea that it was put in and dismissed by George Oldfield and his staff is untrue. And they, like every other police officer in the world, knew that the police had no alternative but to follow up the fraudulent tape and letters as a possible clue, whether they doubted their validity or not. Finally, for those who have enjoyed Douglas and Olshaker on 'The Cases That Haunt Us', I strongly recommend their previous work, 'The Anatomy of Motive'. It was the one book of theirs I had read (by complete chance) before they contacted me, and it remains, now I have met them and read all their work, the one I like best. Martin Fido
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 04:17 pm
Dear Martin, George was your old fashioned copper...a plodder at heart. I can heard him now, even after all these years,"Young Rosemary... yer a bugger!" Love, Rosemary
Author: James Harper Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 04:56 pm
I enjoyed reading your words Martin. Informative and interesting. I agree with many of your opinions on profiling- I think many of the early theories and ideas will be shown to be impractical or inaccurate, probably leading outside commentators to assume profiling has failed. I have also noted the rivalry between profilers, something that is a little silly and likely to further weaken the reputation of profiling in general. On a similar note, I'm not actually hostile to any of the other Ripper board posters, but I do have a mouth (or fingers) that work a little faster than my brain, leading to some confrontational outbursts. This is regrettable and not to be taken seriously I agree too that the cultural environment of Victorian London is essential for an examination of the Ripper's activities. For example, those killers who thrived on paedophile fantasies and abusing children- would they have turned out the way they did had they been able to have sex with a twelve-year-old for a handful of pennies? Would paedophilia have been as common, given that child prostitution was relatively common? Colin Wilson and David Seaman have some interesting thoughts on this in 'The Serial Killers'. I shan't repeat them here, but it's interesting to note that before the Victorians introduced the idea of sex as evil that the majority of mass-killings were for financial gain.
Author: Melvin Harris Thursday, 08 March 2001 - 07:00 pm
PROFILES IN DOUBT Now that a fresh mention is being made of the 1988 Ustinov TV special I have to repeat some of the material already posted by me. It is not true that any of the people involved used any material supplied by me, among others, when developing their 'Ripper profile.' My only meeting with the makers of this programme was a short one in which I made it plain that essential documents on D'Onston were still awaited (hospital and misplaced service records etc) thus an accurate assessment was quite out of the question at that time. In other words it was not possible to include that suspect in any COMPARATIVE studies; any such attempt would be premature and invalid. Further to that, I was NOT PRESENT at any of the later group discussions and so was never able to put any objections to any of the faulty ideas being advanced by others. I was also assured, wrongly, that this programme was an ephemeral item that was due to go out LIVE AND ONCE ONLY in the US and Canada. Thus any boobs would be soon forgotten. But, in fact, repeat and video rights were already sold. I have never seen this tape so I do not know if my caveats were noted. If they were not, as I suspect, then Douglas, Olshaker, Ressler and all the rest of them WERE dealing with duff material. In Ressler's case, the mobility factor in grading serial killers is just as I described it, some time back. Indeed Ressler is on record as saying: "The disorganised killer does not use a car". And his Ripper observations fail to command respect. He tells us that he "...visited the sites of the Ripper murders... and learned a lot about the murders." Among the places he claimed to have visited was "...a bar where he picked up some of his victims..." A bar? This I am sure will be news to anyone who knows the subject. He further states that "Based on this tour, I became convinced that the police had looked for the wrong set of suspects, concentrating their efforts on men of the upper classes, such as doctors, political figures and even a royal." I am certain that most people will be amazed to learn that a simple visit to 20th century Whitechapel will allow anyone to draw such conclusions. Even more amazing is that this 'instant expert' does not realise that the "political figures and ...a royal" that he talks of were never 19th century suspects but are found only in modern fiction! They will further be amazed to discover that the Ripper "...cut out the uteruses of many of his victims..." and placed Mary Kelly's ears and nose "...on a severed breast in mockery of a face." But accuracy is not Ressler's strong point. Even his American history is garbled, since he tells us that "In the 1880's in Boston, Jessie Pomeroy killed twenty-seven children both boys and girls." In fact Pomeroy's crimes ended mid-1874 and he killed just THREE children, two boys, one girl. Of the other two, Fido assures us that: "John Douglas and Mark Olshaker surveyed ALL the Ripper literature...made their decisions and wrote their chapter before they made any contact with me." He also tells us that he "...corrected factual details" for them. So why are there so many basic errors in their work? Just three examples will do for now. Of the Stride murder their text says this: "...unlike in the previous murders, defense wounds on the victim's hands indicated a struggle." Really? Has it been forgotten that Surgeon Blackwell testified that Stride's left hand clutched "...a small packet of cachous wrapped in tissue paper"? As for the right hand, Coroner Baxter remarked that "There was no injury to the hand, such as they would expect if it had been raised in self defense..." So much for these imaginary defense wounds! Then at Hanbury St we learn that "..they found a bloodstained leather apron." which is news to me and to anyone who has read the files. And we are informed that "Two farthings were also found near the body, though this detail was kept secret by the police to qualify suspects." Sheer balderdash! This alleged secret was openly vented in newspapers. Indeed it was an identifiable creation of newspapers. It was sheer myth. It amalgamated two yarns and drew on some real-life bilking that was current at the time. If you look at the version in the 'Daily News' you will see that there was no certainty in the original myth. It evolved around a Hanbury Street incident that featured Emily Walton and a man who gave her "...two brass medals or two bright farthings, as half-sovereigns..." But neither farthings nor brass medals are to be found in any authentic police reports on the Chapman murder. Further evidence of muddled thinking and slack research comes on page 77 where a pretence is made of dealing with D'Onston. We are told that he "...was known to be very interested in the Ripper murders, at one time acting them out for startled onlookers." But the man who was alleged to have acted out the murders "for startled onlookers" was NOT D'Onston, but Dr Morgan Davies. We then learn that "Since [D'Onston] was into witchcraft these elements would surely have shown up in a ritualized way in the crimes. He would also have been able to bring his victims to a secure location rather than risk murdering them on the streets." These propositions are quite absurd and prove that the authors have never studied the up-to-date material I have presented. The ritual features described by D'Onston in his Pall Mall article and in his talks with Cremers, involved the killing of harlots in predetermined places OUTDOORS. The aim being to create a giant pattern, something that could never have been accomplished in "a secure location." (See my last book for the sexual aspects) Their other remarks are not worth dealing with. But their stance, as a whole, proves that the authors simply do not know enough about this suspect to arrive at a mature verdict. These shortcomings make it pretty certain that, when dealing with Anderson's suspect, they were not enlightened but were stuck back in 1988. But since then, enough material has been gathered to show that all this fuss has been about an issue that in 1895 was regarded as nothing more than a plausible theory. No one then took Anderson seriously enough to say that the case was solved.
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan Thursday, 08 March 2001 - 07:46 pm
Dear Melvin, Clarification? Is this intended as a reply...or follow-up, to a previous posting, Melvin? Just a general query for other interested posters. Respectfully yours! A rymorse, Rosemary