Following the American Psychological Association’s Guidelines
Criminal profiling is a sensitive line of work. It involves a special mind, available to open themselves up to, at times, the most depraved of characters. Profiling has become such a point of interest it is often the basis of television shows. The recent television adaptation of Red Dragon, aptly called, “Hannibal,” features young versions of Will Graham and Hannibal Lector. The two work together and, for a brief time even become friends. At the center of it is Graham, who works as a criminal profiler on various cases for the FBI. While the show is thrilling and dark, and Graham’s methods are dramatically eccentric, one wonders after a few episodes if they are simply that: drama.
For the show’s purposes, Graham was approached by the head of the FBI’s behavioral division to help track a particularly elusive serial killer. Graham, believed to have the magic touch in the field of criminal profiling, is also diagnosed with an empathy disorder. The show does not go into further description of the diagnosis, nor does it offer further explanation. It does share that his empathy somehow allows Graham to profile better than others who attempt this job. Once more, no other explanation is offered. Graham is also approached because with a little privacy and a lot of imagination, he is able to stand in the midst of a crime scene and imagine with astounding accuracy exactly what happened. He essentially becomes the criminal, feels what they felt during the crime, and is able to profile them and even track their future movements based on these assumptions. Throughout the series, after he is approached he is often successful based on this tactic.
While the drama of the show is explicitly interesting, Graham’s methods are not entirely based in fact concerning criminal profiling. For example, according to, “Offender Profiling Criminal Analysis,” criminal profiling must take into account the values of the criminal, stating every criminal will have them regardless of his crime, background, or character . Graham is heard stating the values of the criminals he profiles on a number of occasions, but never explains how he observed these values, or why these values would be important to the criminal. They simply are the criminal’s values and are held intrinsically important because Will Graham said so. Unfortunately, the value is also known as a signature and will help law enforcement identify the criminal once they are identified. For all his tactics and empathy, Graham was unable to place a signature on the most murderous of all the killers in his midst for several crimes.
According to, “Advancement of Criminal Profiling Methods in Faceted Multidimensional Analysis,” victimology is an essential part of criminal profiling, especially when tracking a serial killer or potential serial killer . Victimology demands the profiler assess similarites between each victim. In so doing, the profiler may establish a pattern in the criminal’s actions, as well as their thoughts and movements. An approach to the crime may also be discovered through victimology, making the process crucial to solving crimes and saving lives. Graham assesses victims a few times throughout his time as a character on Hannibal, but primarily it is his psychiatrist counterparts, Lanna Bloom, and Hannibal himself who spend the bulk of their time assessing the similarities between victims. In one instance, several members of the show mention the height, weight, and hair color of young women being murdered by a separate cannibal, while Graham refrains from saying anything. Of course, this is not indicative of real criminal profiling tactics. Victimology is important because who the criminal is attacking, as well as how they are attacking them can give an accurate depiction of whom they are, yet Graham seldom engages in this practice.
It could be Graham has little need to engage in victimology because he not only begins to see the criminal’s values, but see and empathize with the criminal’s values too quickly to do anything else. In short, his primary tool is to get so far inside the criminal’s head he almost becomes them. He negates looking for typical criminal traits, such as arson, though he does pay attention to any mutilation of animals. The only time he attempts to predict the criminal’s next move is when he can plot against them, rather than predict what he or she will do next. Typically, when a real criminal profiler is acting, they understand the lucidity of the crime spree will eventually give way to the scattered pathology of a criminal who is not thinking straight. When unable to predict the criminal’s next move, today analysts attempt to communicate with the criminal or even bait them using the media. Graham tries this technique by staging the murder of a reporter and printing false headlines about the supposed murder. Moreover, he does so in an effort to gain his own answers about events from his past, rather than crimes that may happen in the future.
In sum, criminal profilers have a protocol, and tactics to follow that are proven to work. While the character, Will Graham in the newly adapted Hannibal uses some of these tactics, it is almost never for the appropriate reason. He is a criminal profiler marketed as a softhearted do-gooder with an empathy disorder. We never find out why, but this is what is supposed to make him an above average criminal profiler. He understands the tools used by other analysts. Other members of his team use them on the show, often with bumbling results, making Graham’s efforts to empathize with killers look almost noble. While the show is entertaining, his efforts to be a professional criminal profiler miss the mark.
References
Ainsworth, P. (2013). Offender Profiling Crime Analysis. London: Routledge.
Goodwill, A. M., Stephens, S., Oziel, S., Sharma, S., Allen, J. C., Bowes, N., & Lehmann, R. (2013). Advancement of Criminal Profiling Methods in Faceted Multidimensional Analysis. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 71-95.
