Professionalizing Offender Profiling

Offender profiling is now viewed as an integral part of serious crime investigations by many law enforcement agencies across the world and continues to attract a high public and media profile. Despite almost three decades of research and developments in the field, the public impression of offender profiling is still influenced by misleading media portrayals, which fail to acknowledge the significant developments in theory, research and practice. This book is the only book on the market to illustrate in detail the actual practice of Behavioural Investigative Advice, its diversity in application, the underpinning academic literature and the remaining research questions and recommendations. Focussing on the professionalization of this developing discipline, it provides a fascinating insight into the modern role of a Behavioural Investigative Adviser, dispelling many of the myths still associated with offender profiling, and illustrating the continued aspiration of contemporary practitioners to adhere to the highest scientific standards. It provides a journey through the significant efforts to professionalise both the process and product of Behavioural Investigative Advice, supported by relevant theoretical, methodological and operational considerations. Edited by and containing contributions from some of the most respected and experienced researchers and practitioners working today, this book will be essential reading for Police Officers, researchers, students and anyone with an interest in the professionalization and contemporary contribution of forensic psychology to 21st century criminal investigation.

Offender profiling is now viewed as an integral part of serious crime investigations by many law enforcement agencies across the world and continues to attract a high public and media profile. Despite almost three decades of research and developments in the field, the public impression of offender profiling is still influenced by misleading media portrayals, which fail to acknowledge the significant developments in theory, research and practice. This book is the only book on the market to illustrate in detail the actual practice of Behavioural Investigative Advice, its diversity in application, the underpinning academic literature and the remaining research questions and recommendations. Focussing on the professionalization of this developing discipline, it provides a fascinating insight into the modern role of a Behavioural Investigative Adviser, dispelling many of the myths still associated with offender profiling, and illustrating the continued aspiration of contemporary practitioners to adhere to the highest scientific standards. It provides a journey through the significant efforts to professionalise both the process and product of Behavioural Investigative Advice, supported by relevant theoretical, methodological and operational considerations. Edited by and containing contributions from some of the most respected and experienced researchers and practitioners working today, this book will be essential reading for Police Officers, researchers, students and anyone with an interest in the professionalization and contemporary contribution of forensic psychology to 21st century criminal investigation.

'Profilers' and 'Profiling' are now widely discussed, often with almost mythical respect. This is the first volume to cut through the confusions and misunderstandings surrounding this topic to report on detailed, original, scientific research that examines the variations in criminal behaviour from which any 'profile' must be derived. The studies included examine both early approaches to the field and the future problems and potential for an Investigative Psychology approach of offender profiling. This book will be of great value to all those who have been waiting for a scientific, psychological basis to police investigations. It will be read with interest by those who want to get behind the rhetoric and controversy that surrounds 'offender profiling' and require an up to date account of current research and recent discoveries.

George B. Palermo is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology, Medical College of Wisconsin; Adjunct Professor of Criminology and Law Studies, Department of Cultural and Social Sciences, Marquette University; Director, Center for Forensic Psychiatry and Risk Assessment, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

This ground-breaking text is the first to provide a detailed overview of Investigative Psychology, from the earliest work through to recent studies, including descriptions of previously unpublished internal reports. Crucially it provides a framework for students to explore this exciting terrain, combining Narrative Theory and an Action Systems framework. It includes empirically tested models for Offender Profiling and guidance for investigations, as well as an agenda for research in Investigative Psychology. Investigative Psychology features: The full range of crimes from fraud to terrorism, including burglary, serial killing, arson, rape, and organised crime Important methodologies including multi-dimensional scaling and the Radex approach as well as Social Network Analysis Geographical Offender Profiling, supported by detailed analysis of the underlying psychological processes that make this such a valuable investigative decision support tool The full range of investigative activities, including effective information collection, detecting deception and the development of decision support systems. In effect, this text introduces an exciting new paradigm for a wide range of psychological contributions to all forms of investigation within and outside of law enforcement. Each chapter has actual cases and quotations from offenders and ends with questions for discussion and research, making this a valuable text for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Applied and Forensic Psychology, Criminology, Socio-Legal Studies and related disciplines.

Offender profiling is an investigative tool used to narrow down the range of potential suspects for a crime by predicting the personality, behavioral, and demographic characteristics that an offender is likely to possess, based upon information collected at the crime scene. While offender profiling has been popularized by TV shows and movies such as Criminal Minds, Silence of the Lambs, and Mindhunter, the real-world impact of offender profiling is largely unknown. This book discusses the history of offender profiling, summarizes research on offender profiling methods, and reviews offender profiling evaluations of accuracy and applied impact. This book also describes a promising new offender profiling methodology called evidence-based offender profiling. This new method relies upon empirical data and scientific methods to develop, evaluate, and replicate offender profiles, thereby increasing offender profiling’s accuracy and utility for active police investigations. It uses prior information about statistical regularities between types of offenders and types of offenses to predict the characteristics of offenders in unsolved cases. A discussion of the future of offender profiling research and implications for law enforcement is also included. This book also explains how practitioners can benefit from the use of empirically tested and validated profiles in their unsolved investigations and how the use, continued research, and evaluation of evidence-based offender profiling can advance the quality, prestige, and utility of the field of offender profiling.

In this book, renowned profiler Dr. Richard Kocsis presents a distinct approach to profiling called Crime Action Profiling or CAP. The volume explains the scope and methodology employed in the studies that the author has undertaken over the past decade and a half. CAP adopts the view that profiling essentially represents a psychological technique that has its foundations in the disciplinary knowledge of forensic psychology.

Offender Profiling and Crime Analysis provides a highly readable account of the subject, and a picture of profiling which by no means accords with popular views and representations of what is involved. The book provides an overview of profiling techniques, offering some fascinating insights into the various approaches to profiling, and schools of thought, which have emerged − looking particularly at the work of the FBI, and of British and Dutch profilers.