53 pages • 1 hour read
John E. Douglas, Mark OlshakerMindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1995A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Behavior as a Reflection of Personality
Throughout the book, Douglas emphasizes that behavior reflects personality, a theory that is the crux of criminal profiling. An offender’s behavior towards the victim and at the crime scene provides clues to the person’s personality. Behavior reflects specific aspects of an individual’s background and thought process that are unique to the offender. Behavior can also indicate whether or not there is a previous criminal history. It can also point to guilt or a lack thereof. While behavior can change and evolve over time, particularly if an offender is not caught for years, underlying personality traits are fixed and will be reflected in any new behavior.
Douglas postulates that behavior is not necessarily something that can be controlled—for instance, he coined the term ‘signature’ to describe a unique compulsion that a serial offender may have. The signature is not required for the completion of the crime; rather, it is a ritual or impulse that the offender must do to relieve the compulsion. A signature remains constant through all the cases involving a particular offender and reflects something in the offender’s personality that would compel him to repeat his crime over and over again. Another example of behavior that may be beyond conscious control is post-offense behavior—the memory of the crime may change behavior patterns, leading to changes like increased substance abuse, altered sleeping patterns, or decreased stress tolerance. If these changes become known to investigators, they provide clues to the personality of the offender.
To Understand the Offender, Look at His Crime
A profile of an offender requires a thorough study of the crime. The type of crime perpetrated, particularly certain types of violent crime, as well as victimology, provide behavioral clues. An investigator might ask questions like these: who is the offender targeting and why this victim under these specific circumstances? Why was this particular crime perpetrated? What transpired? The crime, according to Douglas, points to an offender’s unique blend of personality traits, which in turn, could provide clues to that offender’s childhood history, criminal history, choice of employment, familiarity with the area, sexual preference, gender, etc.
From the behavioral clues that are left behind, Douglas and his colleagues are able extract information and build a profile of a type of perpetrator. This profile does not necessary point to a specific individual (although it could). More often than not, the profile narrows down the suspect pool and provides focus for local law enforcement. In some instances, it may point to emotional triggers that could help with apprehension. For example, in the case of Gary Trapnell, had he not already been in custody, Douglas would have staked out his father’s grave on major holidays and anniversaries, knowing that Trapnell has a deep attachment to his father. According to Trapnell himself, he would have been captured while visiting the grave on one of those occasions. In other instances, understanding the offender has enhanced interrogation techniques and trial strategy by allowing investigators and prosecutors to add emotional stressors to an otherwise unyielding defense. This strategy was useful in the cross examination of Wayne Williams, who the defense had portrayed as a mild-mannered, well-spoken young man that the police had racially profiled. With Douglas’s assistance, the prosecutor was able to unnerve Williams to the point where he completely lost his composure on the stand, thus showing the jury the violence of which he was capable.
Mental Illness Does Not Excuse Criminal Behavior
Douglas believes that “[c]riminal behavior […] is not so much a question of mental illness as character defect” (344). While many individuals he interviewed and studied over the years have suffered from mental illness, Douglas does not believe that any of them could use their illness as an excuse for committing the crimes that they did. Many serial offenders attempt to use the insanity defense, and Douglas points out that insanity is a legal term, not a medical or psychiatric term. The insanity defense, sometimes known as NGRI (not guilty by reason of insanity), applies solely to criminal responsibility in the eyes of the law. Any variation of the law—M’Naghten, irresistible impulse, Durham, or ALI—requires that at the time of the crime, the defendant lacked the capacity to appreciate the wrongness of his actions and could not control his actions as a result of his mental illness. While the abhorrent behavior of the many serial offenders that Douglas studied could not be considered normal by any standard, it could not be said that they did not know what they were doing. They were often aware of their actions, and they appreciated the wrongness of their behavior, and they chose to proceed. Douglas argues that those who are truly psychotic rarely commit serious crimes, and when they do, they are usually extremely disorganized. They make little effort to disguise their crimes.
