Patent Application
20070112713
The field of the invention relates to criminal investigations and more particularly to a method and apparatus of generating a behavioral profile identifying behavioral traits and a personality type of a potential offender of a criminal incident and linking the criminal incident to other criminal incidents based on the behavioral profile.
Criminal investigations are typically performed on an ad hoc basis. Upon the discovery of a criminal incident, a case is created for the incident that is to be investigated by one or more investigators who collect evidence associated with the case. If a scene of the crime can be identified, the investigator collects any physical evidence from the scene. Similarly, if a victim or witnesses are available, the investigator typically interviews the victim and witnesses. While collecting physical evidence, the investigator may begin to formulate initial theories as to a potential offender and circumstances surrounding the incident. As interviews with the victim and/or witnesses progress, the investigator may revise these initial theories and/or form additional theories, which are used in an attempt to determine facts about the incident and to identify potential offenders (also interchangeably referred to herein as suspects or criminal suspects) associated with the incident.
In an effort to foster a broader exchange of facts, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has promulgated the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) as an investigative tool (database) that collects information about the signature aspects/traits of homicides and similar patterns of modus operandi. ViCAP has proven somewhat effective in providing a standardized database for homicide. However, it requires an investigator and/or other personnel to populate a relatively long form (i.e., 32 pages plus a 2-page addendum), which is often not completed because of its length. In addition, the ViCAP database fails to incorporate intangible aspects of the criminal investigative process such as, for instance, the complexities of the investigative process, the different approaches required by different types of crimes, and the relationship between behavioral or personality traits of potential offenders and various criminal incidents.
Accordingly, a need exists for a method and apparatus that provides an automated way of relating criminal incidents based at least in part upon intangible aspects of the criminal investigative process such as behavioral profiles of potential offenders associated with the criminal incidents, which are generated by the system. It is further desirable that the method and apparatus provide training to a user based upon data input by the user in response to prompts from the system.
The accompanying figures, where like reference numerals refer to identical or functionally similar elements throughout the separate views and which together with the detailed description below are incorporated in and form part of the specification, serve to further illustrate various embodiments and to explain various principles and advantages all in accordance with the present invention.
Before describing in detail embodiments that are in accordance with the present invention, it should be observed that the embodiments reside primarily in combinations of method steps and apparatus components related to a method and apparatus for profiling criminal suspects. Accordingly, the apparatus components and method steps have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein. Thus, it will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration, common and well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment may not be depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments.
It will be appreciated that embodiments of the invention described herein may be comprised of one or more generic or specialized processors (or “processing devices”) such as microprocessors, digital signal processors, customized processors and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and unique stored program instructions (including both software and firmware) that control the one or more processors to implement, in conjunction with certain non-processor circuits, some, most, or all of the functions of the method and apparatus for profiling criminal suspects described herein. The non-processor circuits may include, but are not limited to, user input devices. As such, these functions may be interpreted as steps of a method to perform the profiling of criminal suspects described herein. Alternatively, some or all functions could be implemented by a state machine that has no stored program instructions, or in one or more application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), in which each function or some combinations of certain of the functions are implemented as custom logic. Of course, a combination of the two approaches could be used. Both the state machine and ASIC are considered herein as a “processing device” for purposes of the foregoing discussion and claim language.
Moreover, an embodiment of the present invention can be implemented as a computer-readable storage element having computer readable code stored thereon for programming a computer (e.g., comprising a processing device) to perform a method as described and claimed herein. Examples of such computer-readable storage elements include, but are not limited to, a hard disk, a CD-ROM, an optical storage device and a magnetic storage device. Further, it is expected that one of ordinary skill, notwithstanding possibly significant effort and many design choices motivated by, for example, available time, current technology, and economic considerations, when guided by the concepts and principles disclosed herein will be readily capable of generating such software instructions and programs and ICs with minimal experimentation.
Generally speaking, pursuant to the various embodiments, a method and apparatus (e.g., a system 10 shown in
A given behavioral profile generated by system 10 can, for instance, be used to develop, based on a personality type of a potential offender, targeted: interrogation techniques for a suspect; witness and/or victim interviews; and investigative and prosecutive strategies for a user of the system. The system 10 can also be used to compare the behavior profile to existing behavior profiles accessible by system 10 to automatically suggest possible links to other cases to assist in the further collection of evidence and identification of suspects. For example, system 10 can determine overall personality attributes of a possible offender, and provide a very specific set of interview questions that are most likely to evoke a confession from a suspect. Also upon determining likely personality traits of the possible offender, system 10 can further search previous cases where those traits are exhibited and present such cases to an investigative officer for review to identify a possible offender common to multiple crimes.
Therefore, system 10 can be viewed as an expert system designed to guide and educate users such as law enforcement officers and other criminal investigators on various investigative protocols. As an expert system, the user is guided through a number of steps while being educated at the same time. Some of the steps include the completion of a checklist or document presented by the system 10, wherein in one implementation each document comprises (as a way of educating the user) detailed information about why each question in the document is being asked and what the answer might mean about the offender, evidence or state of the victim. Moreover, system 10 may be applied to virtually any criminal situation or crime type (e.g., sexual assault, homicide, kidnapping, financial crimes, etc.).
Referring now to the drawings and in particular
In this embodiment, hardware 11 comprises: a storage medium 12 that includes some amount of persistent storage such as a hard disk or Read Only Memory, which provides for permanent or semi-permanent storage of items (i.e., a non-volatile storage medium that at least outlasts system reboot); a memory 22, e.g., a volatile memory such as a Random Access Memory, storing executable code in accordance with embodiments of the invention; a central processing unit (CPU) 14 executing the stored code and using, e.g., one or more of the information in storage 12, information input by a user of the system, information retrieved from remote persistent storage (such as various databases), etc. to perform method steps in accordance with embodiments herein for profiling criminal suspects. System 10 further includes conventional elements of one or more user input/output devices 24 such as a keyboard, scanner, tablet, printers, network cards to connect to a network, etc. and one or more displays 26 to enter and display information relevant to operation of the system 10, and a system board 28. Elements 24, 26 and 28 and their functionality are well known in the art and will, therefore, not be discussed here further for the sake of brevity. In one exemplary implementation, system 10 is a laptop of a field law enforcement officer or a work station located at a law enforcement agency.
Further illustrated by reference to
Also accessible to system 10 is a set of criminal cases or case files/folders, e.g., Case1 16 to CaseN 18, that are organized based on a given data structure or format specification or requirements for the system, and that are stored in any combination of storage 12, memory 22 and remote storage (such as one or more law enforcement databases). Each case file is created for a different criminal incident and includes a number of items or information related to the case. For example Case1 16 may be an unsolved case that is currently being investigated by one or more law enforcement personnel, and the other case files may correspond to additional solved or unsolved cases stored elsewhere in system 10 or networked to system 10 from remote systems, wherein system 10 compares these other cases to Case, using the linking engine 23, in accordance with the teachings herein.
A given criminal incident can be associated with, for instance, none, one or multiple victims, witnesses and suspects or possible offenders, a crime scene, physical evidence etc., wherein such information is stored in the case folder. Accordingly,
Turning again to
Turning now to the contents of each folder, the victim interview folder 302 stores evidence input data corresponding to information collected during one or more victim interviews and may further contain an analysis or filter (e.g., victim typology) of this information. The suspect interview folder 304 stores evidence input data corresponding to information collected during one or more suspect interviews. The suspect typology folder 306 stores results of a behavioral analysis performed by the behavioral analysis engine 20. The checklist folder 308 stores evidence input data corresponding to one or more checklists completed by an investigator of the case. The ViCAP folder 310 stores evidence input data corresponding to information collected for entry or inclusion in the ViCAP database. The witness interview folder 312 stores evidence input data corresponding to information collected during one or more witness interviews. The attachments folder 314 can store a variety of other evidence input data including, but not limited to, images of crime scene photographs and other physical evidence, DNA and/or fingerprint evidence, information relating to the parameter(s) use to categorize the criminal incident into one or more crime types, etc. Moreover, there may be a set of the above folders associated with each crime type into which the incident was categorized and there may be other folders not shown that are utilized based on, for instance, the agency conducting the investigation.
Referring now to
These evidence data inputs (402), based on any combination of witness interviews, victim interviews, suspect interviews, ViCAP data, physical evidence, suspect typology, etc., serve as input into the behavioral analysis engine (step 404), which performs (step 206) the behavioral analysis based on and using this input data to generate the behavioral profile (406) of a potential offender. The behavioral profile, in one embodiment, comprises a two-dimensional personality matrix (e.g., as shown in Table 3) having a set of behavioral traits on a first axis (from which are identified a plurality of behavioral traits of the potential offender) and a set of personality types on a second axis (from which are identified one or more personality types of the potential offender). The behavioral profile is input (step 410) into the case linking engine 23, which compares the criminal case under investigation to a plurality of stored criminal cases based on the behavioral profile of the potential offender. If no related cases are output, this result can still indicate valuable information to an investigator, for instance that the crime possibly involves a first-time offender. However, in many instances the case linking engine selects at least one of the stored criminal cases (step 412), which satisfies at least one case linking parameter (e.g., one or more thresholds or a boundary function), wherein the selected criminal cases comprise a set of related criminal cases, and the case linking engine may further rank the set of related criminal cases to indicate a degree of similarity of each related criminal case to the criminal case under investigation.
System 10 may further use the behavioral profile generated by the behavioral analysis engine to develop an investigative strategy for the case that may include, for instance, a victim interview comprising a list of relevant questions to ask a witness to the crime and/or a suspect interview strategy comprising a list of interview questions to ask a suspect of the crime. Moreover, answers input by the investigator to one or more of the questions in these interviews may be further used as a basis for training and instructing the investigator during the investigative process. An investigative strategy may comprise various other aspects such as, for instance, how to locate the offender. For example, where evidence input data suggests that the potential offender is unemployed, system 10 would therefore lead the investigator away from seeking out a place of employment of the offender.
In one embodiment, a user of system 10 (for instance a field officer or investigator sent to a crime scene) uses the system to categorize a criminal incident into one or more crime types and to create and store a corresponding case folder for the incident. For example, upon signing onto the system 10, an investigator may be presented with an applications window via the display device 26 to assist the user in categorizing the criminal incident. In one implementation, the investigator is presented with a number of choices from a crime list file to allow the investigator to select and activate (using an enter button on the input/output devices 24) a crime identification (ID) number associated with one of a plurality of listed crime types. While categorizing the incident, the investigator may further be prompted to enter evidence input data corresponding to the parameter(s) associated with the incident for storing on the system for further use in performing a behavioral analysis using engine 20. For purposes of the present description and the continued discussion, let's say that the investigator categorized the criminal incident as a sexual assault crime type. However, it should be apparent that the teachings herein are not limited to the sexual assault crime type but are easily applied to any crime type into which an incident can be categorized. Therefore just as with the sexual assault crime type, instructions, questionnaires, etc., can be designed based on other crime types.
In response, the presentation engine 21 may present the investigator with a number of initial checklists and questionnaires. In this regard, the presentation engine 21 may retrieve a sequence of checklists from checklist files, interactive instructions from an interactive instructions file and questionnaires from a questionnaire file, and display the checklists, instructions and questionnaires within a respective interactive window on the display 26. Examples of such instructions, checklists and questionnaires displayed in an interactive applications window of the system are illustrated by reference to
Alternatively, the investigator may cause the system 10 to provide paper copies of the checklists, instructions and/or questionnaires for use at the crime scene by the investigator to interview any victim(s), witness(es) and suspect(s), wherein the resulting answers are entered into system 10 at a later time through the input/output devices 24. Table 1 below is an exemplary checklist for investigating a sexual assault crime, and Table 2 is an exemplary suspect interview questionnaire for investigating a sexual assault crime (with both questionnaires shown with exemplary responses).
Since the information being received into and analyzed in system 100 can be quite large, in one implementation system 10 uses a number of filters to collect and receive evidence input data to generate a behavioral profile of a potential offender associated with the incident under investigation. In general, the behavioral profile identifies a plurality of behavior traits of a potential offender and may further identify at least one personality type of the potential offender based on the identified behavioral traits. Information regarding personality characteristics of a potential offender is useful in identifying suspects and in linking the case under investigation to previous and future criminal incidents since in most cases a person's personality stays relatively constant over time. For the example of the crime of sexual assault, the filters may include: 1) victimology; 2) geographical based upon initial contact site; 3) geographical based upon crime scene; 4) geographical based upon a disposal site; 5) physical assault; 6) sexual assault; 7) modus operandi versus signature; 8) organized versus disorganized; 9) offender risk level and 10) suspect information, which are used to collect information from any of a number of sources. For instance, information about the offender may be collected from the victim, from witnesses' statements, from a ViCAP form and from the investigator. If the victim is deceased, then information about the victim may be obtained and entered into the system 10 from family and friends, from physical evidence or from witnesses.
The first filter, victimology, refers to the study of the victim to obtain behavioral cues of a potential offender. In this regard, the study of the victim involves the context of the victim and the crime type. In general, victimology may be one of the most difficult for the investigator to execute in an appropriate manner (especially manually and/or by persons who are not criminal profiling experts), but is nonetheless one of the most important aspects of a criminal investigation in gaining insight into behavioral and personality traits of an offender. In order to accomplish this task, the system 10 provides a training and prompting function (e.g., through an interactive questionnaire implemented via the displays 26 and that is referred to herein as the “learn mode” of system 10) that operates to remove variables involving the personality of the investigator from the profiling results and to provide a level of interactive training for an investigator.
This interactive training is not provided in known systems but can prove very useful in many scenarios. For example, consider a small regional area that does not have dedicated personnel having experience in homicide investigations. An investigator in this region could use system 10 for assistance and training in conducting a homicide investigation within forty-eight hours of the crime, which is considered by most seasoned investigators as the most critical time for collecting evidence that will lead to the apprehension of an offender. Such training and instruction may be based on answers input by the investigator in response to questions on the questionnaires (witness, victim, suspect) and may include, but is not limited to, one or more of the following: presenting to the user an explanation for asking a particular during an interview; determining and presenting to the user at least one implied characteristic of the potential offender based on the answers input by the user; and determining and presenting to the user at least one suggestion for interacting with a victim associated with the incident and at least one corresponding anticipated reaction of the victim when the user is interacting with the victim.
Accordingly in order to prepare the investigator, system 10 may provide the investigator with a checklist window that identifies a number of steps that the investigator should follow for a particular type of crime.
The system 10 may then enter an “investigator learn mode” and prompt the investigator with a victim interaction instruction window to place the investigator into a proper frame of mind for interviewing a sexual assault victim.
Another filter may be geographical based upon initial contact site. The initial contact site may be where the offender initially made contact with the victim. The determination of the initial contact may be made based upon the interview with the victim or from witnesses. The next filter may be geographic based upon crime scene. It should be noted that the crime in this case in this example is sexual assault. If the victim were abducted before the sexual assault, the abduction would be a separate crime and would not define the site of the crime. In this case, the scene of the sexual assault would be the crime scene. Again, the scene of the crime may be obtained from the victim or witnesses. The next filter is geographical based upon disposal site. In this case, if the assault was to occur in a car and the victim was released elsewhere, then the point of release would be the disposal site.
The next filter is physical assault. In this case, a physical assault may be a separate crime that is imposed on an otherwise compliant victim. Evidence of physical assault may be physical or from witnesses if the victim is not available. The next filter is sexual assault. In this case, sexual assault refers to the physical aspect of the crime. Evidence of sexual assault may be physical or from witnesses if the victim is not available. The next filter is modus operandi versus signature. Modus operandi in this case may refer to what the offender did in the normal course of the crime versus what the offender felt necessary to complete the crime. For example, if the offender used rope in the crime, the use of the rope would indicate modus operandi whereas the particular type of rope or knots used would be the signature of the offender.
The next filter is organized versus disorganized. This refers to how the offender approached the crime. Did the offender bring a weapon or simply use what was available? The next filter is offender risk level. This refers to the relative risk to the offender of being held accountable for the crime such as seizing a victim in a public place or assaulting the victim in a dark and isolated alley. The final exemplary filter is suspect information. Suspect information may relate to the perceivable (observed) aspects of the offender (e.g., what kind of car did the offender drive?, how did he act?, etc.).
Once the information is collected from the crime scene and from the victim and witnesses, the system 10 may present the investigator with a series of windows that elicit the impressions about the personality of the offender from the investigator. Table 3 provides a completed questionnaire (termed a personality matrix) that has been prepared for an example offender.
In one exemplary embodiment, for example, the behavioral analysis engine 20 sequentially applies the ten filters to the information that is collected from the crime scene, from the victim and witnesses and from the investigator, a filter processor 23 may sequentially apply the ten filters to the collected information. Each of the ten filters collects attributes regarding a particular personality trait. Each of the attributes may be assigned a numerical value and totalized for each of the four personality types. At least some of the attributes may be weighted with respect to other attributes. It should be noted in this regard, that the analysis of the data about the personality of the offender provides a ranking (by percentage) of the offender according to the four different personality types. In effect, the ranking provides a personality signature of the offender that corresponds to a coordinate in four dimensional space (i.e. x,y,z,t).
Once the investigator collects and provides the information discussed above, the case linking engine 23 uses the personality signature to find related cases. In this regard, case linking engine 23 (conceptually) plots the personality percentages generated from the suspect topology for each case being compared to the case under investigation in a multidimensional coordinate system constructed within the database. The percentages are plotted using a dimension for each personality type (x,y,z,t). It should be noted in this regard that the personality signature conforms to the equation x+y+z+t<100. If all of the questions in the typology are answered, then the equation is the same, except that the total (x+y+z+t) equals 100 instead of being less than 100. This allows the engine 23 to account for vagueness in the data.
The engine 23 may form a boundary function (e.g., a sphere/circle) around the personality signature of the offender from the reference crime (i.e., the “base case”) that defines the boundary of “likeness” or similarity to the base case. The function is divided into 100 parts, with a value of 0 given to the boundary, and a value of 100 given to the base case (reference crime). This allows a user to obtain a relative “likeness” value. The boundary function could be any function, including a non-spherical function that accounts for the natural tendency for personality types to be related. For example, wannabe and devil are quite different, and not likely to exist together, whereas commando and devil would be a more prevalent combination. The engine 23 may produce a list of cases that are ordered by their relative “likeness” to the base case based for instance on where they fall on the plot relative to the boundary function. This list may then be presented to the investigator to review and determine which cases are worthy of further investigation and comparison.
In order to understand the concept of the personality signature coordinate system, a simplified version of the personality signature may be shown in two-dimensional space (assuming 2 personality types (x,y)) (
It may be noted that the system 10 of
A specific embodiment of a method for profiling criminal suspects has been described for the purpose of illustrating the manner in which the invention is made and used. However, one of ordinary skill in the art appreciates that various modifications and changes can be made without departing from the scope of the present invention as set forth in the claims below. Accordingly, the specification and figures are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense, and all such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of present invention. The benefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any element(s) that may cause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become more pronounced are not to be construed as a critical, required, or essential features or elements of any or all the claims. The invention is defined solely by the appended claims including any amendments made during the pendency of this application and all equivalents of those claims as issued.
Moreover, in this document, relational terms such as first and second, top and bottom, and the like may be used solely to distinguish one entity or action from another entity or action without necessarily requiring or implying any actual such relationship or order between such entities or actions. The terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “has”, “having,” “includes”, “including,” “contains”, “containing” or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises, has, includes, contains a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. An element proceeded by “comprises . . . a”, “has . . . a”, “includes . . . a”, “contains . . . a” does not, without more constraints, preclude the existence of additional identical elements in the process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises, has, includes, contains the element. The terms “a” and “an” are defined as one or more unless explicitly stated otherwise herein. The terms “substantially”, “essentially”, “approximately”, “about” or any other version thereof, are defined as being close to as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, and in one non-limiting embodiment the term is defined to be within 10%, in another embodiment within 5%, in another embodiment within 1% and in another embodiment within 0.5%. The term “coupled” as used herein is defined as connected, although not necessarily directly and not necessarily mechanically. A device or structure that is “configured” in a certain way is configured in at least that way, but may also be configured in ways that are not listed.
The present application is related to the following U.S. application commonly owned together with this application by Motorola, Inc.: Ser. No. 60/735,278, filed Nov. 10, 2005, titled “Method and Apparatus for Profiling Criminal Suspects” by Seaman, et al. (attorney docket no. CM08460G).
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60735278 | Nov 2005 | US |
