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how to become a criminal behaviour analyst

Criminal profiling is work that happens almost entirely in your mind. That means your brain needs the right training to analyze and deduce profiles from the data you are given. And that means a top-notch education is the first step on your path to work in the world of criminal profiling.

Your studies will have to include courses such as:

• Behavior assessment
• Abnormal psychology
• Laws and legal procedure
• Criminology and rehabilitation

Many profilers earn bachelor’s degrees in criminology, psychology, criminal justice, or applied behavior analysis. If you are planning ahead, you can mix and match your education between the bachelor and master’s degree levels to get a broad mix of psychological, behavioral, and criminal training that tags all the bases for what a criminal profiler needs to know.

What degree do you need to become a criminal profiler?

Criminal profiling doesn’t have a specific professional career path with a particular degree requirement. You can find profilers working for different agencies that have everything from an associate’s degree in criminal justice all the way up to doctoral degrees in psychiatry.

Your best chances of getting a job as a criminal profiler come at higher levels of education, however. You should plan on earning at least a master’s degree in a relevant field if you want to take up profiling as a profession.

Step 2. Build Your Law Enforcement Skills

Not all profilers are sworn law enforcement officers or special agents, but many are. In any case, you’ll need to have strong knowledge of legal processes and policing to get a job as a criminal profiler. You will need to learn and understand:

• Rules of evidence
• Legal standards for charging and prosecuting criminals
• Constitutional rights
• Police procedure

That usually means getting hired as a police officer or investigator and attending police academy. Although you can find college coursework in these areas, particularly in degrees in criminology, they often focus on the theoretical side of the business. A criminal profiler has to be well-versed in the details of actual investigations, however.

On top of that, becoming a sworn officer also puts you on the path to fulfilling step three.

Step 3. Get Real-World Investigative Experience

Education and academy training only take you so far in preparing to become a criminal profiler. You’ll soon find that reality is much stranger than any of the case studies you get in college or the academy. Crime scenes are messy, witnesses are forgetful, and crime labs are often behind schedule.

You’ll have to put your training into practice out on the mean streets to really hone your behavioral profiling skills.

The ideal positions to make this happen are investigative. Becoming a detective usually means working your way up through the ranks, however. But even good beat cops have plenty of opportunities to hone their behavioral analysis techniques by observing petty criminals, studying patterns of crime in their patrol sector, or watching more skilled investigators at crime scenes.

You might also be lucky enough to land an internship to help you get real-world behavior analysis skills. Work in prisons, with parole boards, or directly with law enforcement agencies can all bridge this gap.

Step 4. Consider Certification Options in Behavioral Analysis

There is no single, widely recognized certification in criminal profiling that you can earn. The popularity of the field today has resulted in a lot of low-quality, fly-by-night certifications from dubious agencies that are just looking to make a quick buck off naive college kids.

Mixed in with those are a few special purpose certifications, like the McAfee Institute’s Certified Criminal Profiler certification that focuses on cybercrime, or the American Board of Professional Psychology’s specialty certification in Forensic Psychology.

In the world of applied behavior analysis, the one important cert to pick up is the Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) from the Behavior Analysis Certification Board.

You don’t technically need BACB certification to become a criminal profiler, but it is a mark of expertise in the field that employers like to see. It demonstrates that you have taken the right coursework, built up more than 3,000 hours of fieldwork, passed an intensive examination, and have committed to keeping up your education and training to stay on top of the field.

Step 5. Find a Job as a Criminal Profiler

Once you’ve done all the hard work of preparing yourself to become a top-notch criminal profiler, you get to the hardest part: finding a job in the field.

As you have probably noticed by now, there are not a lot of these jobs out there in the first place and the competition is fierce.

If you’re already working in law enforcement as a part of step three, then it can make a lot of sense to work your way up the ladder within your agency to profiling jobs.

The FBI is probably the largest single employer of criminal profilers in the country. To get a job with the elite Behavior Analysis Unit, you need to become a Special Agent through the tough Special Agent Selection System (SASS) and get through the rigorous FBI Academy in Quantico.

Qualifying through SASS requires:

• Holding at least a bachelor’s degree
• Being a U.S. citizen
• Being eligible to achieve a sensitive compartmentalized information (SCI) security clearance
• Being between 23 and 36 years old
• Having at least two years of work experience
• Complying with FBI drug policy
• Meeting strong fitness standards

Even once you’ve become a special agent, however, you’re not guaranteed a profiler job. But once you are in the door, you can apply to take additional in-house training directly from BAU that will put you on a path to transfer into the unit eventually.

No matter where you end up working, profiling is a rewarding career that will challenge you and help keep your community safe.

Is being a criminal profiler dangerous?

No. Profilers do not regularly engage in surprise shootouts in creepy basements with their subjects while rescuing captive victims from the bottom of old wells. Most profiling work happens in drab office buildings where the greatest risk is probably accidentally spilling scalding coffee on yourself.

How to become a criminal profiler like on Criminal Minds?

Let’s be straight here: jobs in criminal profiling are nothing like the TV shows. There are no real-life criminal profilers like Jason Gideon or Emily Prentiss. The FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit is real and engages in valuable forensic profiling work for cases from around the country, but the members of the unit rarely leave FBI headquarters and they spend the bulk of their time on cases that are far less sexy than the serial-killer-of-the-week you see on TV.

how do you become a criminal behavior analyst

Despite being a very well-known job because it features heavily in modern cop shows and movies, most people don’t have the first clue how to become criminal profilers.

Right from the start, it’s clear that anyone who wants to match wits with criminals has to have pretty in-depth training in how the criminal mind works. And that’s a natural fit for the field of applied behavior analysis.

Applied behavior analysts have the training and experience to evaluate the ABCs of human behavior to anticipate actions or explain motives. That means they have the expertise to look at the:

• Antecedent – The trigger or environment leading to a behavior
• Behavior – The action itself, prompted by the antecedent
• Consequence – The result of the action

Those three keys can be used to explain or understand the mysteries of criminal behavior. And that’s an understanding that helps put bad guys behind bars.

How hard is it to become a criminal profiler?

It is very challenging to become a professional criminal profiler. Although the jobs feature prominently in TV shows like Hannibal or Criminal Minds, they are a tiny fraction of all law enforcement jobs. Most agencies do not employ dedicated criminal profilers directly, but instead rely on partnerships with other larger agencies or the FBI.

On top of that, the great surge in popularity has made competition for these jobs fierce. You’re not the only person reading this web page right now. You’ll have to have a better education, better instincts, and stronger work ethic than all the thousands of other candidates out there… and then you’ll still have to get lucky to find a job opening.

What skills do you need to be a criminal profiler?

Criminal profilers have to have the rare ability to get inside the heads of people who are, by definition, abnormal. That’s something that can’t be taught.

But there are many other skills that are required or contribute to that talent that you can study and learn, including:

• Critical thinking
• Crime scene analysis
• Written and verbal communication skills
• Chemistry and physics
• Biology and anatomy

NYPD Captain James Cronin, frustrated at the lack of progress with traditional investigative techniques, approached a psychiatrist friend of his, Dr. James Brussel. Brussel met with investigators and reviewed the evidence, then used his psychological expertise to develop a descriptive profile of the likely suspect.

Brussel’s profile was astonishingly detailed. He described the suspect’s age, expertise, religion, personal characteristics, behavioral traits, and likely motivations. Most intriguingly, Brussel insisted that, when arrested, the suspect would be wearing a double-breasted suit… fully buttoned.

Parts of the profile were published in newspapers on Christmas Day, 1956. On January 18^th, a Con Edison employee, reviewing personnel records of discharged employees, recognized a number of similarities in the records to the published profile. Police obtained a search warrant for the home of George Metesky and served it on January 21^st. They found bomb-making materials and took Metesky into custody. He was wearing a fully-buttoned up double-breasted suit when he was arrested.

The case was among the first to use psychological techniques of behavioral analysis to develop a criminal profile to assist investigators, but in decades since, the practice has become both common and widely misunderstood.

Analyzing the Criminal Mind to Apprehend Dangerous Felons

The FBI established a Behavioral Science Unit in 1972 to explore the psychological issues of violent crime and to help establish investigative methods to exploit behavioral clues revealed in the course of investigations. Few of the original members had any formal training in behavior analysis, but they did have a strong conviction that human behavior could be consistently and scientifically analyzed.

Since then, criminal profilers have become famous through hit movies and TV shows like “Silence of the Lambs” and “Criminal Minds.” The reality of the job has much less to do with exciting car chases, shootouts, and sexy victims than with careful and consistent analysis of the same sort that behavioral analysts perform in less entertaining fields such as autism treatment and addiction therapy. The common thread is an adherence to the so-called ABCs of applied behavior analysis:

• Antecedent – The prompt, or initial situation, leading to a behavior.
• Behavior – The action or behavior in response to the antecedent.
• Consequence – The reinforcement mechanism associated with the behavior.

For most behavior analysts, the antecedents and behaviors are observable and the consequences adjustable. For criminal behavior analysts, only the behaviors are clear. The analyst formulates theories of antecedent and consequence to explain the evidential behaviors in an attempt to predict things that could help give some indication as to who the perpetrator is:

• Employment situation and type of job
• Family status and background
• Personal tics and preferences
• Hobbies and formative experiences

For profilers, the test of these predictions comes with the apprehension of the suspect. If the hypothesis was accurate, the profile will have helped to eliminate certain suspects and illuminate new ones. In the movies, profiling takes center stage, but in real life, criminal profilers simply offer one more investigative tool that police look at as part of the total scope of evidence and motive.

Most criminal behavior analysts never get near an actual crime scene. Instead, they work with records compiled by the officers and detectives investigating the crime, searching for behavioral details that may develop into a signature that helps to identify the criminal. This is done by carefully examining evidence left by behaviors and back-fitting possible antecedents. In the Metesky case, for example, the attention to detail evidenced in bomb construction led directly to the prediction of a meticulous nature and anticipation of the neatly buttoned suit the bomber would be wearing.

Short of directly identifying the perpetrator, the behavioral analysis that is worked up can assist in identifying the most likely victim profile so that people that fit the profile can be warned.

how do you become a criminal behavior analyst

The popular conception of behavior analysts working in criminal justice focuses almost exclusively on the work of behaviorists analyzing specific, nefarious criminals in a race against the clock. But the reality is that most behaviorists work on far broader subjects of far greater importance than just analyzing the mannerisms of a single criminal.

In fact, the original Behavior Science Unit was split into a number of different groups in 2014 to better reflect this division of duties, each with a particular analytic focus.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) is the primary resource for American law enforcement agencies inn need of profiling services. The NCAVC responds to requests from state and local agencies to apply the expertise of its staff in applied behavior analysis against difficult cases around the world. The Behavioral Analysis Unit handles case-specific analysis work and provides advice for local investigators on behavioral traits and analysis in the traditional profiling role.

But other criminal behavior analysts now work with hostage negotiating teams, advising negotiators how to analyze and manipulate hostage takers on the basis of their backgrounds or behaviors. Others, such as members of the FBI’s Undercover Safeguard Unit, work with law enforcement officers directly, helping them to cope with post-traumatic stress or other routinely distressing job duties. This can include:

• Training them to work with victims of violent crime
• Preparing them for exposure to trauma
• Assisting them in dealing with disturbing crime scenes and materials
• Training them to recognize fellow officers in mental distress

Other criminal behavior analysts are heavily involved in criminal theory and in the larger field of systems analysis, evaluating societal trends that may serve to encourage or discourage criminal behavior. Other federal and state agencies also employ criminal profilers, including:

• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
• The Department of Homeland Security
• State police and large metropolitan police agencies

Find out what’s involved in becoming a criminal profiler.

what does a criminal behavioral analyst do

Some of the tools developed by NCAVC behavior analysts have become critical pieces of daily law enforcement activity even among officers with no training in behavior analysis.

ViCAP, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, is a computerized database that behavior analysts at the FBI compile to compare behavioral details and likely traits from a wide variety of cases. Local officers can input their case data to look for matches from other jurisdictions to generate new leads. But the system also serves to help track violent crime statistically, providing larger environmental data for legislators and policy makers to work with in formulating effective crime prevention policies.

The BAU also prepares generic profiles to assist law enforcement and even civilians in dealing with crime prevention or response. For example, in response to a spate of school shootings in the mid-1990s, the unit put out a paper with a generic profile of students potentially at risk for committing such crimes. The paper was widely circulated in the education community to allow teachers and administrators to spot possible problems well before they could develop.

At the policy level, studies of criminal behavior provide data for legislators and criminal theorists to adjust laws and punishments to reflect the most effective approach to reducing crime. Studies performed by behavior analysts in Vermont, for example, have been used as resources for reshaping the state’s juvenile justice system, helping to develop processes that discourage recidivism and encourage primary prevention of delinquent behavior.

Preparing for a Career in Criminal Behavior Analysis

Most criminal profilers come to the field through law enforcement careers. The FBI is the most well-known employer. One path to becoming a behavior analyst working in the NCAVC involves becoming a Special Agent.

The requirements to become a Special Agent are:

• Be older than 23 but younger than 37
• Hold United States citizenship
• Have a four-year degree from an accredited institution
• Have a valid U.S. driver’s license
• Have at least three years of professional work experience

Additionally, the FBI requires specialized experience in one or more fields that it deems critical. A background in behavior analysis or psychology would fall under the Diversified Special Agent Entry Program.

The Behavior Specialist Unit was originally established to help train agents in behavior analysis techniques, and the NCAVC still offers courses at the Academy in applied behavior analysis.

Not all NCAVC staff are agents, however. It’s also possible to become a specialist working with the center as a civilian contractor. An advanced degree in psychology or criminal justice would be required along with experience in the field for a candidate to be considered for such roles.

Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA®) certification will almost always be required while accumulating that experience. Earning the BCBA® requires a master’s degree or higher in psychology, education, or applied behavior analysis. Most candidates who are serious about entering criminal behavior analysis from outside the law enforcement field will probably obtain a doctorate in psychology and enter private practice in a specialty such as forensic psychology or counseling.

It is possible to acquire BCBA® certification even with an advanced degree outside those three fields, however. In fact, some criminal justice master’s programs offer concentrations in behavior analysis that include the required coursework to qualify for BACB certification.