Humanities Homework Help

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Technological advancements, including high-powered computers and sophisticated forensic machinery, have a dramatic influence on law enforcement. Criminal investigations often are solved by analyzing one strand of DNA or a smudged fingerprint. Advancements in technology also help in profiling. For example, criminal profilers use software to gather information about the locations of the killings to create a geographical profile of the serial murderer. Other computer programs help to identify all of the victims who were murdered in the same fashion, even if they cross jurisdictional boundaries. Police agencies across the United States can enter information about unsolved murders, including specific details of a victim’s demise. Investigators can review these details to determine whether certain victims are linked to the same serial murderer. These technological discoveries continue to evolve and likely will increase the accuracy and effectiveness of criminal profiling in the future.

To prepare for this Discussion:

Review Chapter 12 of your course text, Profiling Violent Crimes: An Investigative Tool. Consider how criminal profilers can use geographical profiling with current technological resources.

Review the National Institute of Justice’s “Predicting a Criminal’s Journey to Crime”

http://www.nij.gov/journals/253/Pages/predicting.a…

• Review Sammon, A. (n.d.) Geographical offender profiling. Retrieved from http://www.psychlotron.org.uk/newResources/crimino…
• Geographical offender profiling

Review Chapter 16 of your course text, Profiling Violent Crimes: An Investigative Tool. Focus on how technological advancements affected and continue to affect criminal profiling.

Review the article “Criminal Personality Profiling in the Investigation of Violent Crime: Recent Advances and Future Directions.” Focus on the role of computer technology in the creation of criminal profiles.

Consider technological advancements that you think will affect criminal profiling in the future and what will be most influential for profiling.

With these thoughts in mind:

Post a brief description of at least one major technological advancement you think will affect profiling practices in the future and explain how and why.