The FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit

Podcast Transcript

The FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit is one of the best-known and most important units within the bureau.

The use of profiling and psychology to apprehend criminals has revolutionized how we understand and identify them.

It has also been the subject of popular TV shows, such as Criminal Minds and Mindhunter, and movies like The Silence of the Lambs.

However, it is not without controversy. In fact, there are some people who think it doesn’t work at all.

Learn about the development of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit and how agents utilize profiling and behavioral analysis to catch criminals on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

The Behavioral Analysis Unit, or BAU, evolved from the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit or BSU. The BSU was founded in 1972 under J. Edgar Hoover in the last days of his long reign as Director of the FBI.

The unit was designed to understand, profile, and study criminal behavior, specifically in response to the rise of violent crime during the previous decade. The original unit was composed of just 11 members.

The unit’s goal was to help law enforcement understand the criminal mind, especially the minds of serial killers.

Some of the most notable members of the early BSU included Agents John Douglas and Robert Ressler, along with forensic nurse and criminologist, Dr. Ann Burgess.

Part of the early work of BSU agents included traveling to different prisons and interviewing serial predators. In these interviews, they gathered information on their crimes: how they planned them, details they remembered from the time of committing the crime, their motivations, and how they disposed of evidence.

Through these interviews and research, they coined the term “serial killer” for those who repeated murders in a repeated or “serial” cycle.

Notable predators they interviewed included Edmund Kemper, who is also known as the Coed Killer and has been confirmed to have killed 8 women, John Wayne Gacy, otherwise known as the Killer Clown, who had been confirmed to have killed 33 young men, and David Berkowitz or the ‘Son of Sam’ who is confirmed to have killed six people and injuring others.

They used the information from these interviews to compile a database of information that would aid in understanding and predicting future criminal behaviors, as well as the type of person who would commit the crime.

The database was considered to be “complete” in 1979, after Douglas and Ressler had interviewed 36 different predators. After completing this database, profilers were sent out into the “field” to consult on active investigations.

These consultations were done through a technique called criminal profiling. Profiling is done by using the behavior and actions done during the crime to create a profile of the type of person who could have committed the action.

Profiling can help narrow down the pool of suspects during an investigation and help create a picture of the physiological characteristics the killer or offender could have.

Additionally, behavioral analysis can be used to find the motive behind the crime. There are often many behavioral clues left at a crime scene that can help provide insight into the mind of the criminal.

In 1985, the Behavioral Science Unit at the FBI Academy was officially established by the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, or NCAVC. This meant that the BSU received more resources and support for investigative and operational activities, including additional training programs and increased research efforts.

Part of this was the creation of ViCAP, or the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, which held the data from different criminal cases, including the earlier research done by Douglas and Ressler. With ViCAP, investigators had an easier time identifying and matching different aspects of the crime to the profile of the offender.

The Behavioral Analysis Unit of today was established in 1997 as part of NCAVC and the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group. Through this, they aid in investigations across the country and at US embassies around the world, as well as assisting other groups within the FBI.

The modern BAU is split into five different units.

Unit 1 deals with counterterrorism, bombing, and arson cases.
Unit 2 analyzes white collar crime, including public sector corruption and cybercrime.
Unit 3 specializes in crimes against children.
Unit 4 works on analyzing crimes against adults.
And finally, Unit 5, which conducts research on behavior and provides instructions for law enforcement to apply behavioral analysis in their investigations.

The BAU primarily focuses on preventing violence by identifying various concerning behaviors.

Through requests from different agencies, the BAU will provide assistance through consultations. These can be in-person and on-site, or through simple calls.

These consultations allow the BAU to assist with “criminal investigative analysis.” This analysis is completed through a behavioral and investigative lens.

To give you an idea of how criminal analysis works, I’ll provide an example of one of the many behaviors profilers look for when analyzing a violent crime.

When arriving at the crime scene, profilers can examine whether or not an offender is “organized,” “disorganized,” or “mixed.”

Determining if an offender is in one of these three categories can help assess their intelligence, job type, relationship status, and mental status.

An organized offender is typically someone who is intelligent, likely socially skilled, more than likely employed, likely in a committed relationship, and has no history of mental illness.

When determining if an offender is organized, investigators will look for whether a weapon was brought to the crime scene, if there is any biological evidence, like DNA left behind, if the victim was physically constrained, or if the body was concealed or hidden.

Disorganized offenders are the opposite. They more than likely have a history of mental illness, could be employed, but the job would likely require little skill, likely not be very intelligent, struggle with real, intimate relationships, and do not function well socially.

This is shown at the crime scene through a general feeling of disorder, the crime not appearing to be planned, including the weapon being obtained from the crime scene, DNA being left behind, and the body being disposed of poorly.

Another key aspect of profiling that Behavioral Analysts look for is victimology. Knowing why a victim is chosen can aid in finding the motivation behind the crime.

There are many different reasons why a victim could be chosen, including race, sex, age, lifestyle, and other aspects. Knowing these can be key in identifying people most at-risk for a crime and the psychology behind why the perpetrator would pick that specific victim.

Behavioral Analysis can also be used to figure out the signature and the modus operandi, or MO, of the criminal.

The MO is the actions the perpetrator took when committing a crime. So, if a killer were to bring a weapon to the crime scene, you may be able to conclude that part of their MO would be threatening the victim prior to the attack.

Another part of the MO could be if the residence of the victim is staked out beforehand. If the killer were to know that part of the victim’s routine was to take a lunch break at home when no one else was nearby, they could be confident that there would be little risk in attacking the victim at that moment.

Additionally, if there was little planning, that can also play into a profile. If the scene shows a fight, or if the killer was interrupted, it can show that the criminal was unprepared or did not premeditate the crime.

Something as small as the killer being let into the house without needing to break in can hint that the victim and killer knew each other, or that the perpetrator made his appearance appear non-threatening.

Knowing the MO of a perpetrator can show crucial information about the relationship between the victim and the killer.

On the other side of the coin, finding a signature of the perpetrator can also indicate information about their psychology and aid in creating a profile.

A signature can show a need or a fantasy of the killer. This is most often found in serial murder cases, and is usually indicative that the killer needed to do something beyond the actual crime itself.

A signature can simply be posing the victim after the crime, taking an item, or deciding to taunt the police. A signature is not always present at a crime scene, but it can be useful in the investigation and psychological understanding of the perpetrator.

Profiling occurs in different phases of a criminal case.

The first phase is the investigation. During this phase, profilers see whether or not different crimes are linked. They then see if the evidence can reveal if the killer is organized or disorganized, the MO, the signature of the perpetrator, and the victimology. All of these can be used to create a profile of the perpetrator’s characteristics, assess if they are likely to escalate their crimes, and develop a strategy to catch the perpetrator.

The apprehension phase is when the profile is used to narrow down where to look for the criminal, what information should be revealed to the public, and the reaction the criminal may have if caught.

The final phase is the prosecution phase. Here, the profiler would be considered an expert in the case. They will use the evidence to show how to connect the perpetrator to the crime.

There have been many high-profile cases that the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit has consulted on.

To illustrate how they work, I’ll look at one of their first and most notable cases, Ted Bundy.

Bundy was a US serial killer who was confirmed to have killed 20 victims, but he has confessed to killing at least 30 and is suspected of having killed even more.

Bundy’s killings occurred across state lines in different jurisdictions, and profiling was one of the main ways investigators managed to link different murders together. This was done by analyzing the behavioral patterns at the crime scenes and recognizing similarities among the victims.

Resources like ViCAP keep a log of the crimes that occur in different jurisdictions and link patterns that appear similar.

In Bundy’s case, evidence of a serial killer appeared in Washington State, with 10 women going missing over the span of eight months. Then, in Utah, a similar pattern appeared.

Bundy was arrested and later escaped twice, but the pattern continued in both Colorado, where he was imprisoned, and later in Florida.

When he had escaped prison, the FBI was able to release a profile on his MO as well as the type of victims he would be looking for. The FBI considered Bundy to be organized, evidenced by his choice of weapon and the ruses he used to lure his victims.

They knew from his past murders that Bundy would look for victims where young people were, like the beach. They also learned from his victims that he would target younger, brunette women with long hair that they parted down the middle.

By releasing this profile, they hoped to have people on the lookout for someone of Bundy’s description at locations where he was likely to be, while also protecting potential victims.

Before Behavioral Analysis and resources like ViCAP, it would’ve been difficult to link crimes across state lines, as the differing agencies would simply be unaware that a similar crime had taken place elsewhere.

There are some controversies and problems with behavioral analysis and profiling. The largest problem is that it isn’t an exact science. There is no empirical evidence to show that it works.

There is fear of bias and assumptions being made, which can lead to poor profiles based on opinion. Many consider it almost pseudoscience.

To be fair, it isn’t something that you can run a controlled experiment for. You can’t let a serial killer run loose to test to see if you can find them.

Despite the potential downsides, the BAU is considered one of the FBI’s most valuable tools, having grown in manpower and research capabilities. They now mainly work in providing aid and collaborating with different law enforcement agencies.

The work of the Behavioral Analysis unit has had a significant impact on the way law enforcement approaches and understands violent crime.

Criminal profiling has become one of the main tools that police departments and the FBI use to understand criminal behavior and help bring criminals to justice.

It also happens to provide an almost infinite amount of content for television shows.

The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.

Research and writing for this episode were provided by THE Olivia Ashe.

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