Offender Profiling and Crime Analysis

"Peter Ainsworth writes clearly and usefully about the interface between crime, psychology and the law. This book is no exception. It will become required reading for many criminology, forensic psychology and police studies programmes."Ken Pease, OBE Offender profiling is a set of techniques used by law enforcement agencies to try to identify perpetrators of serious crime. There has been a rapidly growing interest in this subject over recent years. Profiling techniques have been used increasingly by police forces in many parts of the world, while fictional representations in films and television series like Silence of the Lambs and Cracker have generated enormous popular fascination with the topic. Offender Profiling and Crime Analysis provides a highly readable account of the subject - and a picture of profiling which by no means accords with our popular views and representations of what is involved. This 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. Key themes throughout are a concern to assess whether profiling should be treated as a scientific endeavour, or merely educated (or in some cases uneducated) guesswork; and a view that a key to an understanding of offender profiling is the need to examine the subject within a broader context of crime analysis, and a wider understanding of criminal behaviour. Particular attention is paid to methods of gathering data on offences, and in identifying the problems and pitfalls involved in this process.