Forensic psychology, specifically, offender or criminal profiling has exponentially increased in popularity since its inception. It has spread though out the United States and internationally and this popularity is due mainly to massive media frenzies that focused on high-profile cases as well as the fictional movie, based on a book by Thomas Harris, Silence of the Lambs (Huss, 2001). Another reason for the wide interest in profiling is that people have a need to know who and why and additionally, have a fascination with the morbid. The flood of popular attention to criminal profiling created several public misconceptions. I will, therefore, generally define criminal profiling, dispelling myths and then will focus on the origins, history and current applications of criminal profiling.
Criminal or offender profiling is a tool used by criminalist, behavioral scientists, forensic psychiatrists and psychologists, investigators, the FBI, the CIA, the CBC, and international law enforcement agencies. However, the practice of criminal profiling is concentrated within the FBI. The mission of offender profiling is to focus a criminal investigation onto more likely suspects (DeNevi & Campbell, 2004; Hicks, & Sales, 2006; Kocsis, 2003; Petherick, 2005). This narrowing serves to better utilize personnel and resources in the apprehension of offenders by investigating suspects and leads that are more accurately assessed (Canter, 2004; DeNevi & Campbell, 2004; Hicks, & Sales, 2006; Kocsis, 2003; Mitchell, 1996-97; Petherick, 2005; 2 Ramsland, 2007; Turco, 1990.
A symbiotic goal of profiling is to restrict investigative efforts to suspects that fall within the realm of the traits assessed to the perpetrator of a particular crime. Traits of a criminal that are addressed ...