Behavioral Profiling and Penology of Crimes in India

A Case Study

Arjun Mohan & Kousi Das
Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad, India

Volume-1, Issue-2, 2018

The construct of law, in any society, is solely dependent on the rudimentary traits of human behavior. Hobbes identified law as that of public conscience. This definition pinpoints to the idea that law is just, only when it combines coherent social behavior, adhering to a collective consciousness that is contrived upon shared beliefs, ideas and moral attitudes. This correspondence between the law and human behavior is propounded by the Natural school of Jurisprudence, wherein it is identifiable that there are certain innate human qualities that dictate the composition of law. Therefore, diagnosing deviant behavior patterns is crucial for the classification of crime. Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that India lacks a standardized profiling study on crime. Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) under the Central Investigation Bureau (CBI) is the only authority to such criminal behavior studies, but however a uniform method of classification is absent.  According to an article published by the Press Trust of India (PTI), the A total of 9635 cases are pending with CFSL as on October 31, 2016.

­­­­This is a case study aiming to gather reports on several infamous criminals and to formulate similar models of behavioral profiling, with respect to the international studies on criminal behavior. Through this quantitative analysis, this research paper aims to ascertain that law and human behavior are co-existential and that it is a domain that associates the disciplines of sociology, psychology and criminology.  The theory of social strain typology proposed by Robert K. Merton sheds light on the concepts of deviant behavior and is complemented by the theories of conflict and structural functionalism. The main objective of this study is to analyze certain behavior patterns which can be determinants for criminal profiling, under the guidance of the studies conducted by several behavioral science investigation units. The penology of these crimes and their characteristics is also extensively discussed based on the legal provisions available to the containment of crime, in the light of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

Keywords: Public Conscience, Behavioral Profiling, Deviant Behavior, Penology of Crime.

 

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