The original research report behind ‘Mindhunter’
The first series of the popular TV show Mindhunter focuses on a group of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents interviewing imprisoned male serial killers to understand their crimes and to develop a typology of violent sexual offending. The events covered in the series are based on real world events.
There are a wide variety of documentaries and books that focus on the FBI team behind the work, written by and about the project team. But as a researcher, I was curious to read the original reports published by the team.
This post provides a brief overview of the background and content for the first report: Violent Crime (Ressler & Burgess, 1985a). You can read the full report here.
Organisational background
The FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) was established in 1984 (Ressler & Burgess, 1985a; NCAVC, 1991), and it continues its functions today. The primary focus for the NCAVC was originally to develop the law enforcement understanding of serial killers (Ressler & Burgess, 1985a).
The Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) was launched with the opening of the NCAVC. However, this unit existed well before the NCAVC. The BAU was originally called the Behavioral Science Unit and was established in 1972 (Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.a.). The BAU supports law enforcement across jurisdictions solve homicide cases and one of the ways they do this is through profiling (Ressler & Burgess, 1985a). If you have watched Mindhunter, you probably also watched Criminal Minds. The unit of investigators focused on in Criminal Minds is the BAU.
The Violent Crime report, published in 1985, was the first time that the NCAVC released a report of their research.
The authors of the report
The 1985 report was written by Robert K. Ressler and Ann W. Burgess. Ressler and Burgess are two of the three people that the main characters in Mindhunter are based on.
At the time the report was published, Ressler was Supervisory Special Agent, FBI Academy, Behavioral Science Unit, Director of the Research and Development Program, Quantico (Ressler & Burgess, 1985a). Burgess was van Ameringen Professor Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing, University of Philadelphia, Philadelphia and Associate Director of Nursing Research, Department of Health and Hospitals, Boston (Ressler & Burgess, 1985a).
Rationale for the project
FBI crime statistics had started to suggest that there was an increase in the number of sexual homicides occurring and that these crimes were likely committed by a small number of serial offenders (Ressler & Burgess, 1985a).
Law enforcement agencies required a reliable way to identify and apprehend serial offenders. There were professionals working to understand the psychological factors at play in violent offending and crime statistics (Ressler & Burgess, 1985a). However, this kind of work requires access to possible suspects or to already imprisoned serial offenders.
The challenge faced by law enforcement is that to solve an ongoing case without suspects, the only information that you have to work with is evidence at the crime scene and patterns in the victims of the crimes (Ressler & Burgess, 1985a). The aim of the research was to provide insights about the link between types of evidence found at crime scenes and the behavioural and personality traits of the offenders who committed the crimes – i.e. profiling (Ressler & Burgess, 1985a).
Content of the report
Violent Crime describes the demographic and social backgrounds of that specific sample of serials killers, ways to classify serial killers, and interviewing techniques when working with serial killers (Ressler & Burgess, 1985a).
Ressler and Burgess conducted what they claimed to be “the first study of sexual homicide and crime scene patterns from a law enforcement perspective” (1985b, p. 2). The study involved two parts. The researchers interviewed 36 imprisoned murderers to obtain self-report information about their personal and family backgrounds, development, school and work performance, attitudes and beliefs, kinds of crimes they had committed (crimes known to law enforcement)(Ressler & Burgess, 1985b) as well as about the role of fantasy in their lives and crimes (Ressler & Burgess, 1985c). They then tested the reliability of an established method of profiling based on crime scene evidence (Ressler & Burgess, 1985d).
The Crime Classification Manual
This foundational work was used to develop the Crime Classification Manual. To improve consistency and provide shared knowledge across police departments the manual would serve as “a diagnostic system that will standardize terminology and for the first time formally classify the critical characteristics of the perpetrators and victims of the three major violent crimes — murder, arson, and sexual assault” (Douglas et al., 1992a).
You can read more about the Crime Classification Manual here:
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References
Federal Bureau of Investigation. (n.a.). How we investigate: Behavioral analysis. Retrieved September 21, 2024, from Behavioral Analysis: https://fbi.gov/investigate/how-we-investigate/behavioral-analysis
National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC). (1991). Annual Report. Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice. Accessed 12 February 2025. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/139267NCJRS.pdf
Ressler, R. K., & Burgess, A. W. (1985a). Violent Crime. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (August), 54(8). Accessed 12 February 2025. https://leb.fbi.gov/file-repository/archives/august-1985.pdf/view
Ressler, R. K., & Burgess, A. W. (1985b). The men who murdered. In Violent Crime (pp. 2-6). FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (August), 54(8). Accessed 12 February 2025. https://leb.fbi.gov/file-repository/archives/august-1985.pdf/view
Ressler, R. K., & Burgess, A. W. (1985c). The split reality of murder. In Violent Crime (pp. 7-11). FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (August), 54(8). Accessed 12 February 2025. https://leb.fbi.gov/file-repository/archives/august-1985.pdf/view
Ressler, R. K., & Burgess, A. W. (1985d). Classifying sexual homicide crime scenes: Interrater reliability. In Violent Crime (pp. 13-17). FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (August), 54(8). Accessed 12 February 2025. https://leb.fbi.gov/file-repository/archives/august-1985.pdf/view