Criminal Profiling: Applied Theories

Criminal Profiling provides a thorough and up-to-date overview of profiling in criminal justice. By focusing on different styles of profiling—whose underpinnings rely on behavioral and geographical theories—it is designed to provide police and others in criminal justice with an understanding of the consistency of behavior at the crime scene, the consistent nature of criminal motivations, how criminals work in familiar geographic areas, and how to construct a timeline of events. Profiling attempts to generate an identifiably consistent personality pattern based on principal character traits inferred from behavior at the crime scene, leading to the predictability of future criminal behavior. The three main types of profiling used in criminal justice—crime scene analysis (FBI profiling), investigative psychology, and geographic profiling—are explained and analyzed, and the essential role of victimology and case linkage is emphasized. Special consideration is given to three primary assumptions—behavioral consistency, behavioral distinctiveness, and homology—that underlie the effectiveness of different approaches to criminal profiling. Practical and approachable, this book brings together the theory and practice of criminal profiling. It is suitable for students in Criminal Profiling and other investigative courses, and equips both future and present investigators with the tools to use profiling principles to their fullest advantage.