Offender
Profiling Series: Vol 2
Profiling
in Policy and Practice
Edited by David Canter & Laurence Alison (1999)
back to Profiling
in Policy and Practice
Profiling in Policy and Practice
David Canter
Equivocal Death
In cases in which a person's death was caused by
means not immediately apparent a procedure known as equivocal death
analysis may be employed. This consists of attempting to form a view
of the mental state of the deceased from records and people who might
have known the person. Whilst this relatively new procedure has some
advantages over the subjective opinion that is sometimes used in such
enquiries it is not a well-established and thoroughly tested technique.
The present chapter discusses approaches to carrying out equivocal death
analyses. It concludes that this procedure has great potential but also
carries grave risks if used without considerable caution.
