Serial crime as occupation: Parallels between occupational analysis and psychological profiling

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis preliminary discussion suggests a process for studying serial crime as an occupation. To date, no investigation of the occupational components of crime has been undertaken by disciplines that historically contribute to forensic science, nor by occupational scientists, although studies have addressed occupational deprivation issues in prisons and how incarcerated individuals establish or restore healthy patterns of occupations as they reintegrate into society. The discussion centers on the processes involved in the occupational profiling of persons who engage in such occupations. Relevant occupational science constructs include the form, function and meaning of criminal occupations, as well as the skills, capabilities, motivations, and contexts of the offender. An occupational perspective might assist with identification of the nature, structure and characteristics of the occupations that comprise offenders’ lives, as well as the subjective experience, process, and outcomes of the occupational performance of serial crimes in innovative ways. Such analysis would complement psychological profiling, which includes collecting crime scene information, arranging this information into meaningful patterns, analyzing victim and offender risk, and reconstructing the crime and the offender motivation, to create a specific description of the law violator.