ASSOCIATE Magazine FBINAA Q2-2024

The FBI’s BAU, or Behavioral Analysis Units, have long been on the forefront of research into criminal and national security matters. Since its inception in 1972 as the Behavioral Science Unit, research has played an integral part of the mission of the BAUs by informing BAU services and products in a sci entifically sound way. Today, the BAUs are split into five units: Threats and Counterterrorism (BAU-1), Cyber and Counterintelligence (BAU-2), Crimes against Children (BAU-3), Crimes against Adults (BAU-4), and Research, Strat egy, and Training (BAU-5). All units conduct original research to inform their consultative services and to build expertise in their respective areas, resulting in research that covers a wide variety of topics. HOW THE BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS UNITS USE CASE FILES TO BETTER UNDERSTAND, SOLVE, AND PREVENT CRIME DR. LAUREN BRUBAKER AND DR. MICHELLE HUFFMAN

FBINAA.ORG | Q2 2024

O ne challenge of relying on academic research to inform law enforcement practices is that most academics do not have access to law enforcement case materials. Although the conclu sions drawn from this research can still be useful and important to LEOs, the vast majority of criminology and psychology re search relies on open source (or publicly available) information. Research conducted by the BAUs, on the other hand, utilizes case materials from the FBI and law enforcement partners to conduct research, analyzing information from rich data sets directly obtained from casefiles. Experts at the BAU then lend their operational expertise to the findings, which allows for more impactful products that are used in consultations and shared with law enforcement partners. For example, using case files from state, local, tribal, and federal partners, research conducted by the BAU-3 revealed that offenders of juvenile sex trafficking fall into one of two broad categories: aggressive/antisocial and charismatic/manipulative. The research team found that different classification of offenders may impact how much risk they pose to society and how they may approach potential victims. This information can be used in sentencing decisions for these offenders and better resources for victims of these types of crimes. 1 Open-source information lacks the depth necessary to reveal such critical insights.

BAU-1 research on active shooters has yielded insightful and important information for local and federal law enforcement. Active shooter research at the BAU dispels the myth that attacks occur “out of the blue” – on the contrary, perpetrators of mass attacks tend to plan the attack for at least a week in advance. This insight gives LEOs and threat assessors a window of oppor tunity to intervene with individuals showing concerning behav iors 2 . However, BAU research also revealed that how the shooter plans their attack may not be readily apparent 3 , and bystanders commonly fail to report concerning behavior to LEOs 2 . As such, BAU-1 has focused efforts on addressing the complex behavior of bystanders. In addition, BAU-1 is continuing research in under standing offenders with the goal of providing comprehensive threat assessment to law enforcement and community partners. Access to full casefiles makes BAU’s research unique from other active shooter research and greatly increases the validity of BAU 1’s findings; in turn, BAU research benefits threat assessors, law enforcement agencies, and other community support to better prevent mass attacks. In order to produce the highest quality and most operation ally valuable research in the most valid way possible, the BAUs rely on case files provided by state, local, tribal, and federal

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