Historical Foundations and Current Applications of Criminal Profiling in Violent Crime Investigations

Abstract

In many countries, such as Canada, police have been increasinglyrelying upon some form of criminal profiling to aid in their serialcrime investigations. A criminal profiler is a psychological consultantor investigator who examines evidence from the crime scene, victims, andwitnesses in an attempt to construct an accurate psychological (usuallyconcerning psychopathology, personality, and behaviour) and demographicdescription of the individual who committed the crime. Although criminalprofiling holds much potential as an investigative tool, the empiricalfoundations of profiling and its assumptions remain controversial. Thepresent paper reviews two main approaches that have developed within thefield of profiling: crime scene profiling and offender profiling. Inaddition, the development of new and innovative profiling approaches inthe Canadian context is described. Our review concludes that a holisticapproach that integrates aspects of the rational/deductive methoddeveloped by the Federal Bureau of Investigations and theempirical/inductive method developed primarily by investigativepsychologists, may represent the most promising approach to criminalprofiling. Possible avenues for future research are outlined.