Name John Douglas | Role Author | |
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Nominations Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Books Mindhunter, The Anatomy of Motive, The Cases That Haunt Us, Obsession, Anyone You Want Me to Be Similar People Mark Olshaker, Robert Ressler, Robert Hansen | ||
John Edward Douglas (born 1945) is a former special agent and unit chief in the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was one of the first criminal profilers and has written books on criminal psychology.
Contents
- Early life
- Career
- Profiling
- Individual cases
- Model for fictional characters
- Publications
- Fiction
- References
Early life
John Edward Douglas was born in Brooklyn, New York. A veteran of four years in the United States Air Force (1966–1970), he holds several degrees: a B.S. in sociology/physical education/recreation from Eastern New Mexico University; an M.S. in education psychology/guidance and counseling from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee; an Ed.S. in Administration and Supervision/Adult Education from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee; and a PhD in comparing techniques for teaching police officers how to classify homicides from Nova Southeastern University.
Career
Douglas joined the FBI in 1970 and his first assignment was in Detroit, Michigan. In the field, he served as a sniper on the local FBI SWAT team and later became a hostage negotiator. He transferred to the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit (BSU) in 1977 where he taught hostage negotiation and applied criminal psychology at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia to new FBI special agents, field agents, and police officers from all over the United States. He created and managed the FBI's Criminal Profiling Program and was later promoted to unit chief of the Investigative Support Unit, a division of the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC).
While traveling around the country providing instruction to police, Douglas began interviewing serial killers and other violent sex offenders at various prisons. He interviewed some of the most notable violent criminals in recent history as part of the study, including David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson, Lynette Fromme, Arthur Bremer, Sara Jane Moore, Edmund Kemper, James Earl Ray, Sirhan Sirhan, Dennis Rader, Richard Speck, Donald Harvey, and Joseph Paul Franklin. He used the information gleaned from these interviews in the book Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives, followed by the Crime Classification Manual (CCM). Douglas later received two Thomas Jefferson Awards for academic excellence from the University of Virginia for his work on the study.
Profiling
Douglas examined crime scenes and created profiles of the perpetrators, describing their habits and attempting to predict their next moves. In cases where his work helped to capture the criminals, he built strategies for interrogating and prosecuting them as well. At the time of criminal profiling's conception, Douglas claimed to have been doubted and criticized by his own colleagues until both police and the FBI realized that he had developed an extremely useful tool for the capture of criminals.
Since his retirement from the FBI in 1995, Douglas has gained international fame as the author of a series of books detailing his life tracking serial killers, and has appeared numerous times on television. Douglas has also written textbooks for criminal profiling classes. He is the author, along with Mark Olshaker, of several books. His books are considered to be some of the most insightful works written on the minds, motives, and operation of serial killers, and the methods and lives of those who track them.
Individual cases
Douglas first made a public name for himself with his involvement in the Atlanta murders of 1979–81, initially through an interview he did with People Magazine about his profiling of the as yet unidentified killer as a young black man. When Wayne Williams was arrested, Douglas was widely reported stating that he was "looking pretty good for a good percentage of the killings." He received an official letter of censure from the FBI Director for this. However, he attended the subsequent legal proceedings and helped the prosecution trap Williams into showing anger, which was key in showing the jury that Williams was the murderer.
Douglas was consulted in yet another controversial case known as "The West Memphis Three". In 1993, three eight-year-old boys were murdered and police and the prosecutor's office claimed the children died as a result of a Satanic ritual sacrifice. Three teens were later tried and convicted under this scenario (Satanism). Douglas was consulted by the defense in 2006/7, by which time there was new evidence of the three's innocence, and his report concluded that the killings were not related to Satanism but rather were unplanned homicides by a lone adult who knew the victims and felt rage against them. In 2011, the three men were released under an Alford plea.
Model for fictional characters
Jack Crawford, a major character in the Thomas Harris novels Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, was directly based on Douglas. Crawford was played by Dennis Farina in the film Manhunter, by Scott Glenn in the film The Silence of the Lambs, by Harvey Keitel in the 2002 Red Dragon, and by Laurence Fishburne in the 2013 NBC series Hannibal.
According to Bryan Fuller, creator of Hannibal, the series' version of Will Graham is based in part on John Douglas, namely in the character suffering a severe case of viral encephalitis throughout the first season.
There is also a screenplay being written for the book Mindhunter, which was optioned for an HBO pilot in concert with Charlize Theron's production company with David Fincher directing, but the project has been picked up by Netflix.
In January 2015, creators of the TV show Criminal Minds confirmed that the characters of FBI profilers Jason Gideon and David Rossi were based on John Douglas.