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witness and a victim. When a child is involved, the police include a psychologist because interviewing a
child represents a skill of its own which some authors call applied art, because of the huge differences in the
developmental communication abilities of the child. It is necessary to pay special attention to the conditions,
type of the questions and surpassing the suggestibility. “When the child is a victim of physical, emotional
and sexual abuse, as well as negligence and disregard, during the interview it has to be taken into
consideration that after the traumatic event (or events) certain changes in the children appear: weakening of
the perception for the length of the events, re-performing activities similar to the traumatic event, repetitive,
unsatisfying game that brings the traumatic subjects, pessimistic expectations for the future, i.e. feelings for
restriction of the future.
11
The cognitive interview is a technique of an interview that explores the memory
and is used for interviewing witnesses, including children. “Results of the investigative interview can get
criminalists who have adequate training for conduction of an interview, who respect the legal provisions and
have professional and ethical attitude towards all suspects without abusing the authority that the country and
society gave the police. The confession obtained by use of unethical methods and means is sometimes false
after which innocent people get involved in difficult and exhausting criminal proceeding which is harmful
for the individual and for the criminal system as a whole.
12
In this sense the principles of the psychology of
testimony have significant influence on its promotion.
4.
PSYCHOLOGY AND THE OFFENDER PROFILING
The profiling of the law offenders during criminal investigations, for the investigators represents a
helpful tool which in combination with other techniques and methods gives them different options for
conduction of the criminal act, that is to say, it helps them to narrow down the sphere of action or to narrow
down the number of suspects. Although the offender profiling does not provide as a final result the exact
identity of the law offender, it describes the type of person that committed the crime and points to the
possible motive, which makes the investigation easier. The profile of the unknown law offender includes
character traits, forms of behavior and demographic characteristics.
“The offender profiling is a process in which the conduct and the actions taken for committing the
criminal act are evaluated and interpreted with a purpose to predict the characteristics of the probable law
offender. Those characteristics are known as a profile whose purpose is to help the police identify and find
the up to that time unknown law offender or offenders”.
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The offender profiling as a method uses the
experiences and knowledge of the field of the forensic and investigative psychology, criminology,
criminalistics, and helps the investigators to predict, i.e. to profile the persons or socio-psychological
characteristics of an unknown law offender, based on all gathered information on the committed crime or
crimes.
Apart from the term criminal profiling, this term is also known to the world as: offender profiling,
psychological profiling, criminal investigative analysis, crime scene analysis, behavioral profiling (in Great
Britain known as BIA – Behavioral Investigative Advice), criminal personality profiling, socio-
psychological profiling. The profiling was used at first to clarify the bizarre law offences such as serial
killings and rapes, and later it was expanded to solving criminal acts connected with sexual abuse of minors,
cult crimes connected
to various religious sects, blackmails,
committing arson, kidnapping and extortion.
In psychology it is well known that there is consistency in people‟s behavior, so the criminal act is not
completely accidental because the offender, as in his personal life, leaves traces and signs with his actions
while he commits the crime. Another supposition from psychology is that there are certain similarities
among the offenders of specific crimes which enable generalization and specification of the person‟s
characteristics. When he commits the crime the offender leaves traces that show his habits, preferences,
routines etc. Actually, the basic idea of the profiling is that the criminal “leaves” psychological traces behind,
character traits that give him away and show the type of person he is. Collected from the crime scene,
together with the testimonies of the witnesses, these “traces” can be very subtle and equivocal. “They can‟t
be taken to forensic laboratory and be observed under a microscope, like is the case with the tangible traces
and physical proofs. These are more like shadows that are undoubtedly connected with the person who left
11
Batic, D.,:
Interview with minors: offenders, witnesses and victims of crimes, symposium Juvenile justice, from idea to practice,
Skopje, 2008.
12
Batic D., Gogov B.:
The meaning of the investigative interview with the suspect in police investigations, Horizons, international
scientific magazine, year IX, no. 10. 2013
13
Canter,D., :
Offender Profiling and Criminal Differentiation, Center for Investigative Psychology, Department of Psychology,
University of Liverpool, Liverpool, 2000