Profiling

In the past forty years, criminal and offender profiling has increasingly been used in attempts to assist the police (and other investigators) to solve serious crimes for which they have either no suspect or a large number of suspects (which they need to reduce in size). This is especially the case for serial crimes that appear to be committed by the same persons. Such crimes are often mentioned in the media, and the need to solve them is usually immense, both from the societal and legal points of view. Profilers use their special knowledge to make predictions about characteristics of the offenders.

In New York between 1940 and 1956 more than 30 bombs were placed in the city but the police could not determine who the ...