Investigative Psychology: Offender Profiling and the Analysis of Criminal Action

For many years Offender Profiling has caught the popular imagination, being drawn on by law enforcement throughout the world. But until the development of Investigative Psychology ‘profiling’ was based on little more than the informed personal expertise of experienced detectives. Spearheaded by David Canter and his associates throughout the world the new discipline of Investigative Psychology has emerged out of a quarter century of research and involvement in many actual cases.
This ground-breaking text book offers for the first time;
• A detailed overview of the worldwide research that has been carried out into criminal actions that is relevant to all aspects of police investigations, from the earliest work through to recent studies, including descriptions of previously unpublished internal reports.
• A framework for students to explore this exciting terrain, combining
o Narrative Theory and
o an Action Systems framework,
Offering empirically tested models for Offender Profiling.
• Guidance for investigations.
• An agenda for research in Investigative Psychology
The full range of crimes from advance fee fraud to terrorism, including burglary, serial killing, arson, rape, and organised crime are dealt with in this unique book, which is the first to provide a thorough basis for studying all aspects of criminal activities.
Important methodologies are described including multi-dimensional scaling and the Radex approach as well as Social Network Analysis.
The important area of Geographical Offender Profiling is covered supported by detailed analysis of the underlying psychological processes that make this such a valuable investigative decision support tool.
Going far beyond the early activities of drawing profiles of serial killers and rapists Investigative Psychology deals with the full range of investigative activities, including;
• Improving the effectiveness of the information collected
• Detecting deception
• The nature and development of decision support systems.
The approach detailed in this book thus provides an exciting new paradigm for a wide range of psychological contributions to all forms of investigation within and outside of law enforcement.
Throughout the book is illustrated with actual cases and quotations from offenders. Each chapter has questions for discussion and research, making this a valuable text for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Applied and Forensic Psychology, Criminology, Socio-Legal Studies and related disciplines.