Revolution
The Need
During the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. was in a constant state of chaos due to events like the Vietnam War and the drug crisis. Along with the surge in crime, the expansion of the interstate highways resulted in overwhelmed law enforcement. At this time, offenders could cross jurisdictional boundaries quickly, causing fingerprints and eyewitnesses (staples of traditional investigation) to become ineffective against serial stranger-to-stranger violence.
The Shift
Social justice advocates opposed profiling out of concern that profiles could lead to racial and cultural bias. This opposition generated significant political and ethical backlash. This backlash, however, reflected legitimate ethical and legal concerns. Later cases demonstrated that profiling functioned best as a complement to traditional evidence rather than a replacement.
The Pioneers
Pioneers Howard Teten and Patrick Mullany argued that a crime scene and the way a crime is committed create a ‘behavioral fingerprint’ that can help identify the psychology and characteristics of offenders, creating a new category of evidence. They shifted the investigative question of “what happened,” to “why did the killer do it this way?” More than a new tool, this science-based response helped resolve the interstate crisis by enabling the BSU to track patterns across all lines. Initially operating as a basement-level project, the pioneers were able to create a foundation through applied criminology workshops without being heavily scrutinized. Their work reinvented criminal investigation processes, proving that understanding behavioral motivations was essential in dealing with a new era of mass, serial, violent crime.
