The Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) is a unit of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice ...

responsible for the analysis of serial violent and sexual crimes, based in the Critical Incident Response Group's (CIRG)

National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime The National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) is a specialist FBI department. The NCAVC's role is to coordinate investigative and operational support functions, criminological research, and training in order to provide assistan ...

(NCAVC). ViCAP was created in 1985 by the FBI and based in

Quantico, Virginia Quantico ( or ; formerly Potomac) is a town in Prince William County, Virginia, United States. The population was 480 at the 2010 census. Quantico is approximately 35 miles southwest of Washington, DC, bordered by the Potomac River to the east ...

. Pierce Brooks was appointed as the first director, primarily because as a homicide detective in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

he had been the first to propose the idea. Brooks was inspired by the

Harvey Glatman Harvey Murray Glatman (December 10, 1927 – September 18, 1959) was an American serial killer active during the late 1950s. He was known in the media as The Lonely Hearts Killer and The Glamour Girl Slayer. He would use several pseudonyms, posing ...

case he had worked on, in which he realized serial homicides could be linked by their signature aspects. Brooks would later obtain a $35,000 government grant to realize his idea. In 1982 he met with

Robert Ressler Robert Kenneth Ressler (February 21, 1937 – May 5, 2013) was an FBI agent and author. He played a significant role in the psychological profiling of violent offenders in the 1970s and is often credited with coining the term "serial killer", t ...

to discuss the idea and was convinced by Ressler that ViCAP should be located at Quantico, as opposed to Lakewood where Brooks originally planned to have it housed. It is designed to track and correlate information on violent crime, especially murder. The FBI provides the software for the database, which is widely used by state and local law enforcement agencies to compile information on: *

sexual assault Sexual assault is an act in which one intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. It is a form of sexual violence, which ...

cases * solved and unsolved

homicide Homicide occurs when a person kills another person. A homicide requires only a volitional act or omission that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from accidental, reckless, or negligent acts even if there is no inten ...

s, especially those involving a

kidnapping In criminal law, kidnapping is the unlawful confinement of a person against their will, often including transportation/asportation. The asportation and abduction element is typically but not necessarily conducted by means of force or fear: the p ...

or if they are apparently motiveless, sexual or random, or suspected to be part of a series *

missing person A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, ...

s, where foul play is suspected * unidentified persons, where foul play is suspected Cases fitting these categories can be entered into the system by law enforcement officials and compared to other cases in an attempt to correlate and match possible connections. ViCAP has been a tool in solving many cases, including cases decades old and cases in widely separated states. ViCAP is particularly valuable in identifying and tracking

serial killers A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

, where separate victims might not otherwise be connected as part of the same pattern. The aforementioned pattern that links serial homicides is what is commonly referred to as "signature". ViCAP operates under the knowledge that serial homicides are almost always sexually- and control-driven with a consistent evolving signature present in each murder. In the summer of 2008, the ViCAP program made its database available to all law enforcement agencies through a secure internet link. This allows for real time access to the database and allows agencies to enter and update cases directly into the database.

References

External links

www.fbi.gov

Highway Serial Killing Initiative and ViCAP Podcast

Behavioral Analysis Unit 2 and ViCAP Podcast
National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime Government agencies established in 1985 1985 establishments in the United States {{crime-stub