NCJ Number
160322
Date Published
1996
Length
217 pages
Annotation
This volume explains the basic principles and practical techniques involved in profiling perpetrators of violent crimes, based on the author's involvement as a profiler in more than 425 homicide and rape cases.
Abstract
The author uses the term sociopsychological profiling rather than psychological profiling to emphasize that a thorough profile includes not only psychological information but also social demographic data such as age, race, sex, occupation, education, and other factors that make up the social core variables addressed in the profiling process. The text notes that profiles are usually most useful in cases where an unknown perpetrator has displayed indications of psychopathology through such actions as sadistic torture in sexual assaults, postmortem slashing and cutting, motiveless fire setting, lust and mutilation murder, rape, and pedophilia. The three major goals of profiling are (1) the social and psychological assessments of offenders, (2) psychological evaluations of belongings found in the possession of suspected offenders, and (3) suggestions and strategies for interviewing suspected offenders when they are apprehended. Individual chapters explain the criminal theories and psychological profiling, the analysis of the crime scene, profiling techniques used for each specific types of crime, computer database construction for psychological profiling, elements in the victim profiling process, and additional future uses for profiling. Case examples, tables, illustrations, checklists, index, suggested readings, and 160 references