Criminal Profiling: International Theory, Research, and Practice

Criminal profiling is often misrepresented in the media, which introduced the public to careers in profiling and other forensic professions. It seems reasonable, therefore, for forensic psychiatrists to have access to a scholarly resource that describes the state of the practice of criminal profiling. Criminal Profiling: International Theory, Research, and Practice may be one such reference.

The book is edited by Richard N. Kocsis, PhD, a forensic psychologist who assembled a team of 30 professionals from North America and Western Europe to author 20 chapters about various aspects of criminal profiling. Despite the multi-national backgrounds of the authors, the material presented demonstrates more similarities than differences in the state of the science behind criminal profiling, including how it is interpreted by courts in various countries. As with many multi-authored texts, the scholarly impact of each chapter varies.

The book offers a solid definition of criminal profiling: “the application of psychological theory and behavioral analysis to the investigation and reconstruction of physical evidence that relates to a particular offender's crime scene characteristics, victimology, motivation, and behavior patterns” (p 62). Unfortunately, this definition is not included in the book's first chapter, “What is Criminal Profiling?” in which Kocsis summarizes how criminal profiling has been defined by others. He chose to introduce the quoted definition in Chapter Three, “Rhetoric and Reality: Investigating the Skills and Accuracy of Criminal Profiling.” An introductory chapter on the basics of criminal profiling would have been invaluable, since forensic psychiatrists and other readers may not have had prior exposure to the academic science of criminal profiling (outside of the popular media).

Eighteen chapters contain previously unpublished material on criminal profiling. Two chapters, which are reworkings of Kocsis’ previously published work, were authored or coauthored by Kocsis. The chapter in which he describes the state of the science and limitations of criminal profiling was particularly interesting because few scholarly resources address these topics. As a matter of fact, much of the available literature in this area was published by Kocsis, who has authored more than 80 articles and two books about criminal profiling.

In several chapters, the authors examine techniques or strategies that are at the forefront of profiling, such as profiling of terrorists and geographic profiling. They also examine case linkage, which is “a process that aims to identify crimes that are likely to have been committed by the same suspect because of the behavioral similarity across the crimes” (p 118). Case linkage shares the assumption used in criminal profiling that offenders are consistent in the way in which they behave across their crime series. Case linkage diverges from the criminal profiling philosophy that assumes that crime scene behavior can predict a perpetrator's demographic characteristics. The authors state that limited field studies involving the accuracy of case linkage have jeopardized the admissibility of case linkage data in court. They also review other aspects of criminal profiling, including examining evidence in sex offenses, arson, and serial crimes.

Kocsis offers an overview of four primary approaches, or schools of thought, to criminal profiling: diagnostic evaluation, criminal investigative analysis (as used by the FBI), investigative psychology (which was founded by British psychologist David Canter), and Kocsis's own crime action profiling. Although the diagnostic evaluation approach is probably less accurate than the other three approaches, no particular school of thought has emerged as superior to the others. This chapter may be a starting point for future study, as the material in the preceding 19 chapters focuses on various aspects of criminal profiling, and not on any of the schools of thought.

Although James Herndon's chapter on the portrayal of profiling in the media is not meant to be scientifically rigorous, it captures the essence of the lay person's fascination with criminal profiling as portrayed in both fictional and nonfictional books, movies, and television shows. He noted, in a historical overview of profiling in the popular media, that television shows in Great Britain and the United States tend to last for one to four seasons. Herndon, who wrote his chapter in 2005, also commented that the first season of the television show Criminal Minds was being televised that year. In 2010–2011 Criminal Minds will be in its sixth season, and a spin-off show on profiling has been proposed. Profiling in the popular media, and in real life, is here to stay.

In sum, readers who can overlook the absence of an introduction to and concise history of criminal profiling will find that Kocsis has assembled a broad collection of chapters that capture the use and limitations of criminal profiling as it is currently operationalized in the United States and Western Europe. The book serves as an informative and valuable resource about criminal profiling and is recommended to forensic psychiatrists who want to learn more about this topic.

• American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law