ASSOCIATE Magazine FBINAA Q3-2024

FBINAA.ORG | Q3 2024

A STUDENT’S PERSPECTIVE: THE COLLABORATION BETWEEN THE FBI BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS UNIT & JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE

ALEXANDRA GOOTMAN

Students in John Jay College of Criminal Justice Forensic Psychology Master’s program collaborate with experts at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (FBI BAU) on research projects using case files provided by law enforcement officers (LEOs) from our state, local, tribal, and federal partners. Students participate in case file-based research, consult with BAU experts, and learn about operationally-oriented research.

S ince its inception in the 1950s, John Jay College of Criminal Justice has a long standing history of serving law enforcement. With educational objectives in criminal justice and leadership development, paired with an emphasis on professional achievement in public service, John Jay offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate degrees. The Forensic Psychology Masters of Arts program educates students on different ways the field of psychology intersects with the law and the criminal justice system, such as psychological expert testimony, victimology, counseling forensic populations, and aiding law enforcement. Within the program, a handful of students within Professor Louis Schlesinger ’s lab team collaborate on research projects with the experts at BAU-5 each semester. As a student in Professor Schlesinger’s lab, I recently worked with the BAU on a course project to design, execute, and present research that used over fifty sexual assault case files provided by our state, local, tribal, and federal partners. We examined offender behavior, crime scenes, and victim characteristics of unplanned sexual assaults occurring in the course of a burglary. Because the BAU is one of the only research centers in the country to gather data on violent crime directly from case files, this experience is truly unique for students at John Jay. The experts at the BAU guided us through the research process and advised us on the possible investigative implications to our findings. Unlike most psychological studies, the purpose behind all of the BAU’s research is not only to describe or explain behavior. Rather, BAU takes the findings a step further and operationalizes them to aid LEOs. BAU provides empirically supported investigative recommendations back to the law enforcement community in the forms of academic and trade articles, investigative guides, and training.

Participating in the partnership between John Jay and the BAU has been one of the most rewarding and unique experiences of my academic career. The experts at the BAU helped develop my research skills and provided guidance on a career in criminal justice-related research. Throughout the semester, their insights have been invaluable and have further inspired me toward a career within law enforcement. Working with case files has given me a better appreciation for all the work LEOs put into an investigation. In addition, case files provide a rich and invaluable data set to expand our understanding of criminal behavior. Case files allow us to have unfiltered access to the behavior of criminals, as well as their interactions within the criminal justice system. Open-source media reports can be unreliable sources as well as fail to provide law enforcements’ perspective into the investigation. This experience would not have been possible without our state, local, tribal, and federal law enforcement partners who provided their case files to the BAU. Currently, the BAU and John Jay master’s students are conducting research on a variety of criminal offenses, such as serial behavior in sexual assault, explosive catathymic homicide, offender confessions, and arson homicide.

About the Author: Alexandra Gootman is a graduate student at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and FBI Honors Intern. Alexandra received her BS in Neuroscience from Union College. Previous professional experience includes clinical and biochemistry-related research.

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