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Offender Profiling Theory, Research and Practice
Edited by J.L. Jackson and D.A. Bekerian
Chichester: John Wiley 1997

Reviewed by David Canter


The disparate contributions brought together in this volume make clear what a curious activity 'Offender Profiling' is. Badcock, a psychiatrists, in an opening essay makes the credo of many 'profilers' clear. He states that many "patterns associated with offending .. occur as a result of recognizable mental illness or mental disorder in the offender". He therefore believes it is possible to draw on the behavioural information derived from crime scenes and associated witnesses to "provide insights into the thinking patterns and personal habits of offenders that extend beyond the limits of the offence themselves". This was the foundation on which a number of FBI special agents, tasked with training law enforcement officers, built their much publicised careers as 'profilers' to some of the most notorious murder investigations in recent North American history. Yet in over two decades of such activity only a couple of articles in third rank journals have been published that hint at any systematic basis for the work of these handful of special agents. Intriguingly the work of these individuals is usually presented as if it were an official 'approach' of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Yet it is clear that what these agents did before they retired and wrote their autobiographies was not that dissimilar from what Badcock describes.

The editors of this volume are aware of the criticisms of 'the FBI approach' yet, perhaps wisely, they do not provide any detailed examination or evaluation of it. Instead they seem to take it as part of the cultural baggage that must be carried in any contribution by psychologists to police investigations. They strive to unload the confusions and ambiguities of 'the FBI approach' by including in their volume a number of courageous attempts to develop other approaches and even a few first steps towards systematic research. Sadly, though, some of these attempts only muddy the water further. Boon's claim is the strangest of all. He proposes that because each criminal case a psychologist may contribute to is unique the psychologist should build his advice on the personality theory that best suits that case.

There has never been a clearer proposal that psychological theory should be treated as a vocabulary to be plundered in order to decorate personal opinion, rather than a set of hypotheses open to empirical test. Other essays, although drawing on a more cautious exposition, similarly reveal a surprisingly cavalier approach to data and the testing of procedures. Rossmo's is a case in point. He presents here another account of his much publicised 'Geographic Profiling' software. Yet no direct evidence in support of the validity of his system is provided, merely illustrations and anecdotes describing how it works. We do not even get a concrete example with the details to check for ourselves. Indeed Rossmo reveals how much his contribution to police investigations derives from his own native wit and considerable investigative experience rather than any objective modelling of criminal behaviour in his admissions that a "more subjective interpretation of offender hunting styles" is at the heart of crucial investigative support.

The reasons why Badcock, Boon and Rossmo are taken so seriously by police forces in the absence of systematic results to support their claims becomes clear from a careful reading of the chapters in this volume that do provide reports of research. Most notably Farrington and Lambert's chapter reveals just how difficult it is even to obtain reliable information from official police records. They focus on the basic information available in common crimes such as burglary and interpersonal violence and show that even the sex of an offender is not recorded with 100% reliability, height and hair colour drop to below 30% reliability. Non-observable features such as place of birth and living circumstances hover around 50% reliability. Given that this is the sort of information available in the police records both to assist investigations and as the starting point for empirical studies to develop 'profiling' it is not surprising research is moving forward so slowly. The weakness of existing police records also helps to explain why reports of studies carried out within the context of police research units are the most productive in this volume. Jackson and here colleagues in Holland, House in Canada and Davies in London all report careful studies of material they drew specifically from criminal investigations. Being part of the systems they are studying they show a mature caution in any claims they make for their results, being thankful for even small steps towards defendable findings. For example, Jackson and her colleagues draw attention to the importance of distinguishing the different types of violence that can occur in rapes. They report that rapists who use expressive violence in their offences more often had committed previous crimes of violence than those who used instrumental violence. Here is the basis for a firm theory of the personality bases of violence in crimes rather than the ad hoc search for a theory to fit the facts that Boon advocates. Davies also takes the more pragmatic first steps of testing whether there really is any support for the transparent hypotheses that certain criminal behaviours indicate an offender's characteristics. Usefully she demonstrates, for example, that offenders with access to cars or good public transport systems do travel further afield to commit their crimes, or that those who take precautions to avoid leaving fingerprints are very likely to have prior convictions. Given the difficulties of amassing the data and of its inherent unreliability such findings are essential building blocks if profiling is to move out of the realms of alchemy and psychic insight and become a natural part of behavioural science.

The project reported by House is possibly the most advanced along this path towards fully fledge scientific studies. He shows how he has derived underlying themes to criminal behaviours as the basis for deriving his hypotheses. But unfortunately, like Rossmo, he drifts into an account of what his system does rather than providing detailed evidence for its effectiveness. The volume also contains essays on the needs of British investigating officers and their current skills and experiences. These are an important antidote to media hype which implies that it is 'profilers' who solve crimes. As the current Chief Inspector of Constabularies, John Stevens, makes clear in his chapter, the British police force is very sophisticated when it comes to managing major investigations. It does not suffer from the complexities and conflicts of interest that is endemic in the United States and which the FBI as a whole was set up to help resolve. However, neither his chapter nor the others in a similar vein by Oldfield and by Gudjonsson and Copson, make clear that he British police are moving the systematisation of their activities forward on many fronts, so that 'profiling' is increasingly becoming part of more general crime analysis and intelligence lead policing. Overall, then, this volume captures an intriguing slice of the state of 'profiling' (mainly in the UK with some indications of activities in Canada and Holland) as it was when these papers were written a few years ago. It shows a little progress beyond the original explorations of Hazelwood, Ressler and Douglas at the FBI Academy, but mainly indicates just how far we have to go.


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