Offender Profiling

Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is a behavioral and investigative tool that is intended to help investigators to accurately predict and profile the characteristics of unknown criminal subjects or offenders. Offender profiling is also known as criminal profiling, criminal personality profiling, criminological profiling, behavioral profiling or criminal investigative analysis. Geographic profiling is another method to profile an offender. Television shows such as Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Profiler in the 1990s, the 2005 television series Criminal Minds, the 2011 television series Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, and the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs have lent many names to what the FBI calls "criminal investigative analysis."

Holmes and Holmes (2008) outline the three main goals of criminal profiling:

• The first is to provide law enforcement with a social and psychological assessment of the offender;
• The second goal is to provide law enforcement with a "psychological evaluation of belongings found in the possession of the offender" (p. 10);
• The third goal is to give suggestions and strategies for the interviewing process.

In modern criminology, offender profiling is generally considered the "third wave" of investigative science:

• the first wave was the study of clues, pioneered by Scotland Yard in the 19th century;
• the second wave was the study of crime itself (frequency studies and the like);
• this third wave is the study of the psyche of the criminal.