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Jeffrey Dahmer: The Study Of Criminal Profiling

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"This has never been a case of trying to get free. I didn't ever want freedom. Frankly, I wanted death for myself. This was a case to tell the world that I did what I did not for reasons of hate, I hated no one. I know I was sick or evil, or both. Now I believe I was sick. The doctors have told me about my sickness and now I have some peace.” Widely known serial killer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Jeffrey Dahmer, declared this as his closing statement of his murder trial on February 12th of 1992. Dahmer was a man hated by the nation for his horrendous and inhumanely cruel acts. Like other cases of serial murder, little to none tried to understand him. To most eyes, Dahmer was not a person. He was only seen as a serial killer with sadistic intentions. …show more content…

This term was brought up by John E. Douglas, the F.B.I. agent who pioneered criminal profiling and helped establish the Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico in 1972. Profiling is a certain expertise of detective work compared to the familiar one of just finding the suspect. General breakdowns on a criminal show a wide array of possible suspects in a whodunit situation. With profiling, the area of suspects is significantly slimmed. Profiling allows the crime scene and the investigator to define the killer. By narrowing down on a criminal act, a profiler can predict what kind of person committed it. From the crime scene, the killer’s personality traits can be corresponded to the details. Douglas often followed the idea that different crime styles coincided to different personality types of the criminals. For instance, in an “organized crime”, the killer might properly dispose of the murder weapon. The killer will get rid of the body in a more advanced or extremely concise way. This displays the precocious and articulate nature of the criminal, also showing that he might have a superego. The other type known, as a “disorganized” killer attacks in broad daylight or where he could be easily caught in public. This killer leaves obvious trails of unplanned and random executions. This type of killer might leave a knife behind or might move only in high-risk environments due to lack of full logical thinking. Details such as these suggest that the killer has low self-esteem and a very strange behavior that results in him sticking primarily to himself with no friends, making him an

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