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Offender Profiling and Crime Analysis
Peter B Ainsworth
"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 an 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 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.
Key themes throughout have been 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 crime profiling is the need to examine the subject within a broader context of crime analysis, and a wider understanding of criminal behaviour."
Peter B Ainsworth is Director of the Henry Fielding Centre, University of Manchester, and an experienced author and researcher in the field of psychology and crime. His previous books include Psychology and Crime: myths and reality (Longman, 2000), and Psychology, Law and Eyewitness Testimony (Wiley, 1998).
Contents
Preface
Introduction
1 Offender profiling – separating myth from reality
2 Criminal behaviour and its motivation
3 Environmental influences and patterns of offending
4 Problems and pitfalls in the gathering of data
5 Crime mapping and geographical profiling
6 Early approaches to profiling
7 Investigative psychology and the work of David Canter
8 Clinical and other approaches
9 Current developments and future prospects
10 Conclusions
References
Index
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