Chapter 2 Translated Preface "Modern Sherlock Holmes" and His Judicial Psychology

In the FBI, there is a Behavioral Science Investigation Support Section that has not been established for a long time but has made a lot of achievements. It applies psychological analysis methods to the detection, investigation and interrogation of major series of criminal cases, so that the complicated and confusing cases can be revealed. The deliberate murderer was revealed.The main author of this book, John Douglas, has worked in the department for more than 20 years. This is a documentary and discussion work based on his personal experience.The "behavioral science" method used by John Douglas is consistent with and perfected by the detective Sherlock Holmes in the fictional story.The cases he handles are characterized by heinous crimes and elusive motives.He has done so many feats that the St. Louis Globe Democrat praised him as "the modern-day Sherlock Holmes of the FBI."In this book, John Douglas vividly and meticulously tells the true suspense stories one by one, and vividly and brilliantly demonstrates the mystery of judicial psychology.

All human behavior, including criminal behavior, is dominated by thoughts.As Engels said: "As far as an individual is concerned, all the motivations for his actions must pass through his mind and must be transformed into his desires and motivations to make him act." At the seventh academic seminar of the conference, the participating experts agreed that the deep-seated cause of various crimes in society is the distortion of human nature caused by the imbalance of human mentality.Studying and grasping the psychology of perpetrators is an effective way to solve crimes and prevent crimes, and it is also an important topic for criminal investigation and trial personnel, correctional personnel, and relevant experts and scholars.Due to the elusiveness of criminal psychology, the unwillingness of criminals to reveal their true thoughts to others, and the difficulty or inexperimentability of criminal psychology research (constrained by legal and ethical concepts), criminal psychology research is more difficult than psychological research in other fields. , has not yet formed a satisfactory research method system.And Douglas made a fruitful attempt in this regard.

Douglas's "creed" for studying and grasping the psychology of criminals is: "If you want to understand Picasso, you must study his art. If you want to understand the personality of criminals, you must study his crimes." He believes that his work and psychotherapy Different, "People who engage in psychotherapy start with the study of personality, and speculate on their behavior from that perspective. My staff and I first study behavior, and then deduce personality from this perspective." He studied criminal psychology, grasped Its personality mainly through three channels.

One is crime scene analysis, which is to "recreate the crime scene in the brain" through on-site inspection.He and his colleagues summarized the on-site analysis process as answering three questions, namely "what, why, and who". "What" is thinking about "what happened, including any circumstances that might be behaviorally significant about the crime," based on being at the scene or studying the reports of the first police officer who arrived at the scene. The "why" is "why the crime happened in this way, e.g. why the postmortem took place, why no valuables were taken, why there was no coercive break-in, why any meaningful element of conduct arose during the crime what is it".Then it is necessary to speculate on "who", that is, "who will commit this crime for these reasons".

The second is to study the victims.Why was this one chosen among so many potential victims?How was she (he) killed?The autopsy report is to be studied in order to know the nature of the wounds, the type, the cause of death, whether there was a sexual assault and if so, what type.Get to know the victim as well as you can, and put yourself in the victim's shoes to figure out how the victim might react.For "it is only by knowing exactly how a particular victim reacted to the horrors that befell her or him that it is possible to truly understand the actions and reactions of a murderer".

The third is to study criminals.The author pointed out that criminal investigators should "put themselves in the perspective of the attacker, think in his way, plan with him, understand and experience his satisfaction".The author emphasizes that it is far from enough to only understand the "modus operandi" (modus operandi) of criminals, and it is more important to gain insight into the more stable "identification marks" ( Signa-ture), so as to reveal the inner world of the offender, forming a description of his personality psychological characteristics and other personal general conditions such as gender, race, age range, marriage, military service, occupation, education level, IQ, criminal record and even the color of the vehicle The "criminal profile" (criminal profile), thus creating the most favorable conditions for narrowing down the scope of suspects and concentrating on capturing the real murderer.

In 1978, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation formally approved the establishment of the Behavioral Science Investigation Support Section to provide police officers from all over the country with consulting services on the psychological profiling of criminals. By the 1980s, this service had become extremely popular. After the 1990s, the research of the author and his colleagues on "criminal profile" and "identification mark" has made great progress and has been recognized by the judiciary. It has become a routine for them to testify in court during serial murder trials.As the author said: "According to tradition, in order to successfully prosecute and convict a murderer in a murder case, you must produce solid forensic evidence, eyewitness testimony, perpetrator's confession, or strong circumstantial evidence. Today, With our behavioral profiling and signature analysis based on crime scenes, police and prosecutions add another weapon. On its own, it is usually not enough to convict, however, as long as one or more other factors Used in combination, it can often tie different cases together and even become the key factor necessary to ultimately close the case."

Douglas and his colleagues conducted interviews with dozens of incarcerated felons in order to gain insight into personality types and psychological characteristics of criminals.For various reasons, most felons are willing to be interviewed.Before the interview, he usually has enough information on the criminal to judge whether the criminal is telling the truth.While most either repeated their interrogation testimony or recounted their own self-serving justifications, he interpreted it through "scrutiny and extensive scrutiny," "seeing how the perpetrators thought and gaining some intuition about them." , and began to put oneself in their shoes to think about the problem from their point of view", not only summed up the three common motives of serial robbers and murderers are domination, manipulation and control, but also conducted separate investigations on various criminals such as poisoners, blackmailers and bombers. Analysis of personality traits.

The process of catching the murderer is actually a process of psychological contest between the police and the murderer.After committing a crime, the murderer tends to be nervous because he is afraid of being caught and punished. They usually pay close attention to the police's movements and actively collect relevant information.In order to catch him as soon as possible, the author and his colleagues provided the police with profiling and identification mark analysis as a powerful weapon in handling the case, and based on the deduced murderer's unique personality psychology, they proposed to the police the so-called "foreign crime" of psychological intervention on the murderer. photography strategy” recommendation.For example, when a San Diego murder case was detected in the early 1980s, the author suggested that the police release certain information to the media: describe the case, and introduce the analysis of the case by the Behavioral Science Investigation Support Section of the FBI to show the police’s accurate judgment and strength; The police are going all out and will not stop until the murderer is brought to justice to show their determination to solve the case; pointing out that they have received some reports and hope the public will continue to provide clues.The idea is to suggest to the perpetrator that there is a high probability that he will come under suspicion for being reported, which would make him feel the need to explain to the police how he was there.As expected, the murderer took the initiative to get into the police's investigation network and was arrested without the police chasing around.

The interrogation room is also an important battlefield for the psychological contest between the police and criminals.Douglas believes that the basis for a successful interrogation is "grasping the real situation and resorting to the reason and common sense of the perpetrator." The author pointed out: "Everyone has weaknesses, and each of us can be subdued." To subdue a criminal, one must try to find out his weaknesses or expose them.For this reason, he and his colleagues paid great attention to the selection of the time and place of the interrogation, the arrangement of the "background" and the determination of the interrogator.Speaking of his own experience, the author said: "I have always believed that the late night or early morning hours are the best time for interrogation. People tend to be more relaxed at this time, and it is easier to expose their weaknesses. And, if you and your If your guys are working all night, you can immediately send the message: This case is serious, and you are working hard to solve it. Night interrogation has another practical consideration for conspiracy suspects, that is, the suspect in your hands is not It should be seen by others. If he thinks he has been 'discovered', he will not make any transactions." The so-called "background" arrangement is to use the "factors that make the suspect feel like a pinch" and create a pattern that will attack his weakness and force him to submit. psychological atmosphere.For example, choosing a special room makes the suspect feel that the police have specially formed a "special case team" and has a dedicated office or meeting room; there are many enlarged police investigation photos and information pictures on the interior wall, and it shows that the suspect will face the crime once he is convicted. Penalty chart; put stacks of file bags (in fact, white paper inside) marked with the suspect’s name on the table in front of the suspect; put the criminal tools or key criminal evidence found at the crime scene where the suspect can see place, wait. The more factors in the "background" that make the suspect "sit on pins and needles", the greater the psychological pressure on the suspect.The authors also note that identifying the interrogator is also important.In order for the psychological influence exerted on the suspect to be more effective, the interrogator should be selected "someone who is a little older than the suspect and more authoritative, one who is well-dressed and dignified, one who can appear friendly and candid, Someone who puts the suspect at ease, but who, when necessary, can turn his face away and become absolutely serious and merciless." If the interrogator can see through the perpetrator's physical condition (sweating, shortness of breath) during the interrogation etc.) and eye expression, body movements and other "body language" to gain insight into its subtle psychological changes, good at attacking the mind, and relentless pursuit, no matter how cunning the perpetrator is, it is not difficult to be subdued.

Obviously, "Psychological Detective" is actually a popular textbook on judicial psychology including criminal psychology, detection psychology, interrogation psychology and judicial personnel psychology.Douglas's practice of law enforcement not only makes traditional judicial psychology operable, but also promotes the breakthrough of judicial psychology theory and makes it perfect. It has played a huge role and has high practical value. "Stones from other mountains can be used to drill jade." It is recognized by the international psychology community that in the United States, all branches of psychology research, including judicial psychology, are in the leading position in the world.However, the study of judicial psychology in our country has been a blank for a long time, and it is still in the initial stage.Similar to the fact that 30 years ago, most people in the FBI and the judiciary regarded psychology as "not worth mentioning", "nonsense", and "just one step away from witchcraft". There are misgivings and misconceptions about psychology.This book lifts the mystery of using psychology to handle cases, and explores the social contradictions, values ​​and human nature issues related to it.The translation of this book is smooth and fully reproduces the style of the original work. "The benevolent see benevolence, the wise see wisdom".For ordinary readers, reading this book is like wandering in the contemporary Sherlock Holmes detective story; for judicial staff, this book opens a window of judicial psychology to them.In short, it is rich in content and thought-provoking.No wonder the book has been a bestseller in Europe and America for a long time after its publication, and was quickly translated and introduced to Japan and Taiwan.

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