Offender Profiling

Aim
The profile can give clues about evidence that might be found on the criminal, such as souvenirs taken from the crime scene.

Process
Analysis of the crime, making detailed records of the victim, place, photographs, DNA evidence and time of day. A criminal profiler uses this information to construct a list of probable features of a criminal.

Evaluation
There has been debate over whether offender profiling is useful or not.

Some people believe that offender profiling is only guesswork:

It is the profilers own subjective interpretation of behavioural characteristics of a crime;

Not based on actual evidence (e.g. DNA);

Has been responsible for false conviction, Colin Stagg was wrongly arrested and made an outcast due to an incorrect profile that pointed to him

Some people believe that offender profiling is useful:

It is based on psychological theory/geographical profiling/clinical evidence/undertaken by an expert; Behavioural clues left at the crime scene can be considered evidence to build a profile; Cases such as John Duffy have been successful use of profiling.

But we don't know because:

Its purpose is not to find a criminal but to narrow the field so it is difficult to judge whether it is guesswork. However, there are many factors that dictate successful cases so a criminal being caught or not may be a result of other factors. The police may not use the profile so it is difficult to judge accuracy/whether it is guesswork or not. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, so it’s difficult to say if it works or not.