Symbolic Analysis: Criminal Investigative Methodology

Instructor: Dawn Perlmutter, Ph.D.
Course length: 8 hours

Symbolic Analysis: Criminal Investigative Methodology is an advanced training for investigators and intelligence analysts that provides symbolic and anthropological methods to interpret forensic and symbolic evidence such as symbols, tattoos, marks, mutilations, writings, and other symbolic evidence. The use of interpretive methodologies such as semiotics, hermeneutics, and symbolic anthropology as a criminal investigative method are described in detail. This method which has been successfully utilized as a counter-terrorism tool and in dozens of ritualistic crimes interprets the meaning of symbols, rituals, language, artifacts, and other cultural expressions from the offender’s point of view.

The significant differences between interpretive analysis, which attempts to understand symbolic, ritual, and violent acts through the meanings that people assign to them as opposed to examining evidence in terms of psychopathy and criminal personalities is described. It is demonstrated how the symbolic anthropological approach examines how offenders create meaning out of their own experiences uncovering their cultural beliefs, worldview and motivations for violent acts.

This Symbolic Analysis: Criminal Investigative Methodology course is presented by Dr. Dawn Perlmutter whose mission has been to advance knowledge, information, methodologies, and understanding of all expressions of symbolic and ritual violence. She provides law enforcement investigators, defense and intelligence agencies, forensic scientists, and criminal justice professionals with specialized information to assist in the investigation and analysis of unfamiliar areas of violent crime.

Dr. Perlmutter also continues to develop interpretive research methodologies that are used in criminal investigative analysis. She continues to collect, systematize, and evaluate symbols, emblems, insignia, sacred objects, rituals, ideologies, etc., of hundreds of organizations, gangs, and sub‐cultural groups. Dr. Perlmutter’s lectures are frequently presented to standing-room-only crowds.

Dawn Perlmutter, Ph.D.

Holding a Doctor of Philosophy from New York University and a Masters Degree from The American University, Washington, D.C., Dawn Perlmutter is an active member of The American Investigative Society of Cold Cases (AISOCC) and The Vidocq Society, an exclusive crime-solving organization that solves cold case homicides.

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