Ever since 2005, when the hit TV show Criminal Minds began, the number of people interested in the FBI and criminal profiling has skyrocketed. People began to build dream careers around it, which is expected; however, these people often did not take into account the limitations and falsities that come with a television show. Personally, Criminal Minds is my favorite TV show and only helped to encourage my passion within the field of forensic psychology. That being said, despite their importance in some of our lives, we must acknowledge and debunk the false ideas that television shows such as this one give to the general public. What is real and what is fake? Is criminal profiling really all that it seems? Today we’ll take a look.
For starters, the process of how the real BAU pursues criminals is not properly translated into television. They do not have their private jet, and criminal “profilers” are not part of the team; they are criminal psychologists, and these professionals rarely leave their workplace and certainly do not apprehend criminals themselves. Additionally, in TV shows such as Criminal Minds, profiling is very glorified when in reality it is highly possible that a profile can be completely false, in comparison to the show where the team’s profile is dead on about 97% of the time. Yes, this is purely for entertainment purposes, and nobody watched a television show to gain knowledge, but this doesn’t change the fact that some viewers may subconsciously start believing what they see on TV as a reflection of real life.
Profiling is often portrayed as a fool-proof method to catching criminals, and while it is estimated to have a 66-83% efficiency rate in the real world, it is still not perfect and it is very important to make sure in reality, law enforcement doesn’t force themselves into a box when finding offenders just to match a profile. It is also shown as something that works quickly, when, on average, in the show, they catch the criminal within days of the first profile. This is typically very inaccurate. To begin, forensic evidence never comes back as fast as it appears to in not only Criminal Minds, but all law enforcement shows such as Law and Order and NCIS. Forensic evidence can take as long as months to come back with results, whereas in these shows it comes back anywhere from minutes to hours, and sometimes days.
The characteristics of a crime that is committed are often not dependable for developing an idea about the appearance of the offender. For example, a violent crime committed in a matter of minutes is not enough information to determine that the person responsible is six feet tall with brown hair. But in these law enforcement shows, the details of the crime often give them the information they need to figure out both the personality and appearance of the offender. However, some of these things could be assumed based on fact, such as the common fact that cross-racial crimes are very uncommon, making it easier for law enforcement to narrow down the race of the culprit.
Overall, law enforcement television shows, specifically Criminal Minds, portray an inaccurate and dramatized version of criminal profiling and criminal investigations themselves. While they make for great, and I mean great, entertainment, these shows are not things to model your beliefs on, or methods to learn about how the investigation process works in the real world. And for people similar to myself, interested in pursuing a career in the forensic/criminal psychology area, make sure you want to do this because you want to be involved in the reality of it, not the falsities portrayed on your television screen.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBcvcRdmDMM
