ViCLAS Specialist (VICLAS)

Purpose

To provide the students with greater knowledge of the behaviours of serious, serial and deviant offenders, and to provide further insight into the application of the Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System (ViCLAS).

Course content

1. thinking behaviourally, human sex drive, psychiatric disorders
2. victim/offender behaviour, fantasy
3. rape typologies, organized vs disorganized, child molesters
4. interview of victims, false allegations, stalking behaviour
5. Criminal Intelligence Analysis Service
6. geographic profiling, statement analysis
7. behaviour analysis methodology
8. inductive logic
9. the ViCLAS system, computer aided analysis

Student selection criteria

Candidates must be a police officer employed in a ViCLAS centre or a civilian who has been given an exemption by the OIC ViCLAS under the Civilian Member Pilot Project. Candidates must have sufficient experience performing data entry and quality control on ViCLAS 3.0 and/or 4.0.

Foreign candidates are to further ensure that a business plan exists and licensing agreement has been signed between their ViCLAS Centre and the RCMP.

Canadian ViCLAS centres include the following:

• British Columbia/Yukon, with RCMP "E" Division, Surrey
• Alberta/N.W.T./Nunavut, with RCMP "K" Division, St. Albert
• Saskatchewan, with RCMP "F" Division, Regina
• Manitoba, with RCMP "D" Division, Winnipeg
• Ontario, with OPP, "HQ", Orillia
• Quebec, with Surete du Quebec, "HQ", Montreal, or with Montreal Urban Community Police, Montreal
• New Brunswick, with RCMP "J" Division, Fredericton
• Nova Scotia/P.E.I., with RCMP "H" Division, Halifax
• Newfoundland/Labrador, with RCMP "B" Division, St. John's

Student assessment

The ViCLAS Specialist Course is a difficult course which requires a consistent level of performance from each student. Students must maintain a minimum grade of 75% on all written examinations. There will also be a practical exercise at the end of the Computer Aided Analysis portion of the course. Students must successfully pass this exercise which involves identifying potential linkages to a target case and be prepared to defend their findings.

Duration of course: fifteen working days

Class size: twenty students

Language of instruction: English