Criminological profiling as investigation and evidence for legal defense: A proposal in forensic psychology and clinical criminology

Abstract

This article proposes an alternative perspective on the evidentiary use traditionally accorded to criminal profiling in criminal courts, where it is often rigidly employed by the prosecution to profile a suspected perpetrator and classify them based on their modus operandi. The proposal is primarily aimed at the defense, without excluding prosecutors, in contexts where it is appropriate to conduct victimological investigations with the support of highly specialized external experts. The proposed course of action is based on established professional practice in Mexico and is supported by scientific evidence drawn from both clinical criminology and forensic psychology—disciplines that enable, respectively, the criminological analysis of case records and the clinical investigation of the accused. The data presented here are derived from a criminological and victimological investigation in which the author participated as a defense profiler. In this study, a clinical and criminological evaluation of a subject (hereinafter, Luis) was requested with the aim of identifying the possible presence of psychopathologies, personality traits, or identity disorders related to a paraphilic criminal inclination, as well as the likelihood that he possessed the capacity to engage in sexually aggressive behavior.