Offender Profiling: An Introduction to the Sociopsychological Analysis of Violent Crime
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By George B. Palermo, MD, and Richard N. Kocsis, PhD. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas Publisher, 2005. 266 pp. $56.95.

**Reviewed by Jacqueline K. Buffington-Vollum, PhD** 

According to the authors, this book was written from the perspective that the “field” of profiling lacks a coherent theoretical model. In an attempt to rectify this deficiency, they approached profiling from a holistic perspective—what they term “sociopsychological” criminal profiling—their intent being to present the material from a “more thorough, more research-oriented, and more objective” perspective than have others. And it is the opinion of this reviewer that the authors succeed in doing so. Specifically, they provide a comprehensive review of the cumulative knowledge about the psychosocial components that should contribute to the development of an offender profile, a discussion of crime scene assessment and considerations related to staging, and balanced appraisals of several of the leading current approaches to profiling.

The book begins with a thorough consideration of the “Psychosocial Substrate of Criminal Profiling.” The authors consider the origins of profiling. At the most basic level, profiling occurs in all social interactions. Humans, inherently social beings and living in a social milieu, rely on cognitive heuristics to predict others’ behavior. They describe psychological testing, attitudinal testing, and psychiatric diagnosis as forerunners of their type of profiling. To place the topic in context, they reference various fictional and nonfictional works that have pondered factors theoretically related to crime (e.g., Lombroso, Dostoyevski). Overall, the chapters in Part I thoroughly explore both psychological/psychiatric (e.g., theories of personality and personality traits/characteristics such as impulsivity, sadism, and aggressivity; and mental illness) and “sociocriminological” perspectives (e.g., theories of criminality and offender typologies) about factors that may be operating to produce criminal behavior in its most persistent and aberrant forms. Emphasis is given to serial offenses—such as homicide, rape, and arson—as they are the cases in which profilers’ assistance is most likely to be enlisted (particularly from the mental health professions, from which the authors derive their knowledge and experience). A major premise of the book, and of most types of profiling, is that the criminal act committed is a manifestation of the offender’s motivations, desires, and personality traits, thereby providing clues to the individual(s) who committed it.

Part II, “The Crime Scene,” provides notes on crime scene assessment and the personality of the investigator, as well as a chapter on crime scene staging and its detection. Oddly, although these topics—especially the fundamental factor of crime scene assessment—arguably form the crux of criminal profiling, this is the shortest (and probably weakest) section of the book. Indeed, a discussion of information that might be documented and/or interpreted through proper crime scene assessment (e.g., location/position of the body, intensity of the attack, and injuries sustained) comprises only 4 of the 28 pages of this section of the book. Integral information that should be addressed was not even discussed in this section (“What?” “Where?” “When?” “How?” And ideally, “why?” to assist in identifying “who?”). In contrast, the authors proceed to provide an extensive, informative chapter, replete with 11 case descriptions and results from an informal survey, on crime scene staging and its detection. In comparison, particularly given the relative infrequency of staged crime scenes, this seemed somewhat akin to overkill (no pun intended).

Part III, “The Main Approaches to Profiling,” was intended to provide the reader with a relatively comprehensive summary of the major literature in the expanding field of criminal profiling. As such, the authors use specific criteria to determine inclusion/exclusion of profiling paradigms for discussion. To be included, the method had to incorporate research (in the form of numerous original, quantitative studies published in academically peer-reviewed media) that shared some common theory or methodology, collectively characterize the approach, and be distinct from other approaches or bodies of work. Thereby, a representative sampling of the current, major approaches to criminal profiling—specifically, Criminal Investigative Analysis, Investigative Psychology, Crime Action Profiling, and Geographic Profiling, and the authors’ general brand of profiling, Sociopsychological Criminal Profiling—are outlined. In each chapter, the historical origins and major contributors to each method are discussed, the key concepts and methods are defined, and a review of the empirical research on the approach’s validity is provided. Finally, the strengths and limitations of each paradigm are explicated.

Overall, Part III is the strongest component of the book. The authors make it clear that the section is not intended to be an exhaustive discussion of approaches to profiling—nor would it be feasible to provide such a discussion—but they provide a fair and balanced consideration of each included paradigm. In addition, they include an addendum to draw attention to other materials and approaches that were only briefly mentioned but that have made contributions to the field. With respect to the “discrete” approaches, there appears to be significant overlap between Investigative Psychology and Crime Action Profiling (the second author’s expanded approach), and disproportionate space was allowed for the latter (nearly 40 pages versus approximately half that for the other approaches). However, these limitations do not constitute a major weakness of the book, nor is it unexpected that an author would highlight his or her particular system or technique. Furthermore, many of the additional pages devoted to Crime Action Profiling focus on discussing studies that have examined the actual practice of profiling (e.g., necessary skills of a profiler, structure and composition of profiles, and studies on its accuracy and perceived utility), an area that is largely unique to—and a strength of—this particular paradigm.

Taken as a whole, the book appears to succeed in achieving the authors’ intended purpose. They effectively integrate the cumulative knowledge, both basic and advanced, from psychiatry, psychology, criminology, and sociology, and delineate the importance of each to the field of criminal profiling. They justify their assertion that profiling is not only an art but an emerging science and do so in a fair, balanced manner. They present both “positive and negative observations regarding the practice, and raise questions about its utility and its pitfalls” (p. 248). Furthermore, the authors keep an eye toward pragmatism throughout the book, highlighting the need to be accessible to the actual users of the practice of profiling (i.e., law enforcement). By these accounts, this book has the potential to be useful to practitioners, researchers, and students in the mental health and law enforcement fields.

Nevertheless, the publisher would have done well to have performed a more thorough editing of the book (and should do so in future editions). For example, there are certain small inaccuracies (e.g., referring to Crime Action Profiling as “Crime Action Analysis” in the Preface) that could confuse the reader. Moreover, the chapter on crime scene staging was written by Robert Hazelwood and Michael Napier and is identified as such on the book’s title page. However, this is not noted on the cover, in the table of contents, or even on the title page of the chapter itself. It seems that such an asset would be highlighted to bolster further the book’s appeal.

*   American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law