NCJ Number
230069
Journal
Legal and Criminological Psychology Volume: 15 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2010 Pages: 115-132
Date Published
February 2010
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This article draws a line under the early beginnings of an emerging field of psychology, criminological, and investigative exploration commonly referred to as offender profiling.
Abstract
This paper outlines a brief history of the evolutionary trajectory of offender profiling and illustrates the three broad strands (investigative, clinical, and statistical) that emerged in the 1970s through 1990s. It then indicates how a more pragmatic, interdisciplinary practitioner-academic model has emerged in recent years and go on to describe the range of contributions that are now made across the criminal justice field. More recently termed 'behavioral investigative advice' (BIA) in the United Kingdom, the paper then argues that while a range of potential contributions exist (from linking crimes, risk assessment, provision of bad character evidence, investigative interviewing advice, to geoprofiling), the nature of the process by which that contribution occurs is not yet well understood. The review of these potential contributions concludes with several suggestions and recommendations for further research and relevant methodologies by which to conduct that research. This includes the requirement to combine conceptual and theory-driven models alongside empirically driven statistical approaches, as well as the requirement to more precisely delineate and describe how contributions are made by behavioral experts through cognitive task analyses and associated methods. References (Published Abstract)