BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY: DETECTION, PROFILE AND APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Working to integrate psychology in the judicial investigation, the french Gendarmerie
Nationale have been endowed with a special unit of behavioral analysis for fifteen years. In
a unique format in France, the Département des Sciences du Comportement (DSC) of the
Central Criminal Intelligence Agency offers a support tool to the inquiry in the framework
of serial phenomena or for a single criminal act. His vocation is to bring a contribution to
the investigations through a psycho- criminological approach made of the crime scene’s objective elements.
But, in front of a particularly violent or atypical crime scene, the investigators often tend to
consider that only a mad person can be the perpetrator. In this context, and thanks to some
elements of understanding of criminal behavior, the analysis aims to determinate, case by
case, what could be related to a psychological disorder, to elaborate the perpetrator’s profile
in order to facilitate his or her identification.
Considering that the crime scene is a criminal behavior’s expression, it is reflecting the perpetrator’s personality. Behavioral analysis’ keystone, the link between the crime scene and the
perpetrator’s personality will be put in perspective through the evocation of several concrete
cases.