A Modified TOPSIS Procedure in Psychological Profiling for Crime Scene Analysis

Abstract

Psychological profiling is an important technique in crime scene analysis, particularly when limited or no digital, physical, or forensic evidence is available at a crime scene. Psychological profiling can be defined as the process of identifying the probable physical, behavioral, and psychological characteristics of an unknown offender based on the actions and behavioral patterns exhibited during the commission of a crime. Such profiling can support investigators by narrowing the range of potential suspects and providing additional information about offender characteristics when conventional evidence is insufficient. This paper presents an extensive study of psychological profiling in the context of crime scene analysis and proposes a new decision-support methodology for evaluating potential offender profiles. The proposed methodology integrates the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) with a resemblance measure and addresses decision-making problems involving multiple ideal solutions. This integration enables alternative psychological profiles to be evaluated according to their resemblance to different ideal profiles derived from crime scene characteristics. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology, a detailed case study involving five crime cases is conducted. The psychological characteristics of the offenders are evaluated based on information obtained from the corresponding crime scene analyses. The results demonstrate how the proposed approach can systematically differentiate among potential psychological profiles and support the identification of offender characteristics across different crime scenarios.