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HISTORY OF PROFILING
"History doesn't repeat itself -- it rhymes" (Anonymous)

Profiling is an investigative technique and forensic science with many names and a history of being practiced on many levels for many years. It is extensively represented and glamorized in books and film. It is most commonly associated with law enforcement, although profiling takes place in other areas and in other contexts not limited to criminal justice (Harris 2002; Bumgarner 2004). There is fundamental difference, however, with criminal justice profiling as normally, one is looking for an "unknown" person, not just profiling a celebrity or known individual on the basis of public domain information. Many dictionaries and encyclopedias tend to call this offender profiling or criminal profiling. The next most common names for it are psychological criminal profiling, or simply psychological profiling. The FBI approach produced the name criminal personality profiling. Criminologists tend to think of it as a type of applied criminology or clinical criminology, and some in criminal justice tend to strongly associate it with crime scene reconstruction and detectives or former detectives tend to call it criminal investigation assessment or crime assessment. Alison & Canter (1999) say that profiling almost always takes place after a crime scene has been examined, but there are many profilers who only work with crime scene records and reports and consult from behind a desk. Holmes & Holmes (2002) prefer the name sociopsychological profiling, and like many others, think of it as a type of behavioral investigative analysis or criminal investigative analysis. There is a tendency in some circles to believe that profiling is a learned ability which comes from experience working as a detective (the so-called "feel" for crime, or the profiling-as-art dimension), and this is WRONG since good profiling will blend educational and training backgrounds. To be a good profiler, one needs to have knowledge of sociology, psychology, psychiatry, and criminology, as well as the ability to blend the theories of these disciplines with common sense.

It is also WRONG to think of profiling as the consideration of racial, sexual, or religious characteristics only. Others (even those in criminal justice) may put forth such an unwieldy definition, and there are certainly bad examples of improper discretion or "irrational profiling" (Carlson 2002) to be found. Racial profiling is just plain wrong, with Kenneth Meeks (2000:5), the author of Driving While Black, defining racial profiling as "when a person is stopped due to his or her skin color and because there is a fleeting suspicion that the person is engaging in criminal behavior." Police sometimes do stop people, under certain conditions, on the basis of race, sex, or religion, but few experts who have looked into this see it as having any theoretical, legal, or practical grounding, and most consider it best to avoid non-neutral words like "targeting" or "stereotyping" in any definition. Profilers do not shy away from consideration of race, however. Race, sex, and religion are perhaps the most controversial elements in profiling, but good profilers also make more use of things like travel patterns, socioeconomic status, geographic locations, age, and clothing. Some adequate definitions appear below:

According to Harris (2002), historically, the most common adversaries of profiling have been: (1) airplane hijackers; (2) serial killers, as well as rapists; and (3) drug couriers. To this list might be added: (4) assassins; (5) terrorists, at least as airline passengers in the wake of 9/11; (6) suicide bombers, as well as bombers and arsonists in general; (7) mass murderers, especially those who "snap" and engage in workplace violence, or school violence; (8) gang leaders and gang members; (9) child molesters or pedophiles; (10) auto thieves; (11) fugitives; and (12) the most controversial one of all -- "racial profiling" which was a short-lived attempt to "spot" suspicious minorities who didn't seem to "fit" into the neighborhood they were driving, walking, or jogging in. The Lecture on Situational Awareness (in the Homeland Security course) provides the reader with a good background on non-serial killer profiling and also discusses three other adversaries: (13) stalkers; (14) abusers, as in domestic violence; and (15) con men. Also, another adversary, (16) the white collar criminal, has recently emerged within the field of forensic accounting (see Lecture on Lifestyles of Financial Criminals). It should be noted that this is an odd assortment of adversaries, and one would be hard-pressed to assemble or put together all the criminological theories or typologies in any one place to deal with all of them. The fact of the matter is profiling (as a practice) often takes place in the absence or forefront of theory. This is to say profiling is usually judged by its success or failure as a practical endeavor instead of as an academic discipline, and that is unfortunate, since the two really need to embrace one another.

Although it is difficult to put exact dates on it, profiling as a discipline appears to be a development of the 1970s. Although with serial killer profiling, as Newton (2000) points out, it was the criminologist James Reinhardt (1957) who first coined the phrase "chain killer" which was then followed by British author John Brophy's (1966) coining of the phrase "serial murderer," forensic psychiatrist Donald Lunde's (1976) coining of the phrase "serial mass murder," and sometime during those years (around 1974), FBI agent Robert Ressler's (1992) coining of the phrase "serial murder." With airline hijacker profiling, another example, this was judged as having much success from 1968-1973 until the FAA eventually, in 1973, simply began to start using metal detectors in airports (Bumgarner 2004). From 1974-1995, the FBI enjoyed similar success (and widespread notoriety) with serial killer profiling, and today, hundreds of law enforcement officials are trained in FBI serial killer profiling techniques which have become somewhat of a model for profiling overall given that the technique can be applied to almost any violent, serial, or bizarre offender. (Note: of these three characteristics: violent, serial, and bizarre, the middle one, serial or repeated crimes may be the least important component of a common adversary, since contrary to popular belief, it�s not necessary that the offender be a serial criminal, and profiling can be done from a single crime scene. Likewise, property criminals can be profiled as easily as violent ones. Conventional wisdom has it that profiling works best when some kind of "bizarre" behavior or psychopathology is involved.) Drug courier profiling emerged as part of the War on Drugs during the 1980s, and began in airports, was upheld as constitutional in U.S. v. Sokolow (1989), and quickly spread beyond the nation's airports to all ports of entry and along the nation's highways. Volusia County (FL) Sheriff Bob Vogel was instrumental in mainstreaming the practice of profiling to the highways in the 1980s, and he used the term "cumulative similarities" rather than profiles. The rest is history, as by the mid-1990s, numerous state legislators were quick to curry favor from minority voters by passing bills "banning" racial profiling from their states or setting up stringent reporting systems.

As Fredrickson & Siljander (2002) point out, profiling can be either PROACTIVE or REACTIVE. When investigators use profiling to try and solve crimes that have already happened, they are being reactive, and this whole crime-solving part of it is what has been glamorized. Proactive profiling involves an attempt to interdict and foil crime before it happens, and can be defined as follows:

Just as reactive profiling is over-glamorized, proactive profiling is over-criticized. It seems whenever proactive profiling is discussed in the context of police activity in areas where a significant number of inhabitants are ethnic minorities, the charge of racial profiling is raised. Likewise, so-called "broken windows" policing (which pays attention to little things like vandalism, graffiti, broken windows, abandoned cars, and ill-kept property; on the assumption that such things broadcast a message that crime is welcome here) sometimes raises the charge of racial profiling because of the aggressive patrol and stopping of suspicious people involved. However, broken windows policing was very successful in cleaning up New York City when consistently applied to the crime problem there, at least according to most accounts (Carlson 2002).

Historically, 90% of profiling has involved murder (65%) and rape (25%) cases (Holmes & Holmes 2002). 70% of all serial murder is sexually motivated (Newton 2000). Not all crimes have been the subject of profiling, but the ones which have include: child molestation, kidnapping, extortion, obscene telephone calls, and suicide. Bank robbers have been profiled as young (age 26-30), white (61%), unemployed (56%), high school dropouts (49%) who have no criminal record (only 15% do) and commit fewer than four offenses (Haran & Martin 1984). Arsonists have also been extensively profiled (Rider 1980) as have anonymous letter writers and telephone callers (Casey-Owens 1984). Geberth (1996) reports that the following crimes are "most suitable" for profiling. It is probably not a good idea to limit or delimit the kinds of crimes for which profiling can be useful. The basic fact, however, is that some cases are more suitable and appropriate for profiling than other cases, regardless of the type of crime it is.

According to Holmes & Holmes (2002), who take the FBI serial killer profiling technique as a model for proactive profiling of an UNSUB (Unknown Suspect), there are three goals that a profiler strives for:

The first goal will involve hypothesizing about the offender, and in some cases, guessing as to the offender's age, sex, race, religion, employment, place of residence, and so forth, as can be reasonably inferred. Profilers pore over evidence, police and autopsy reports and crime scene photos. They learn everything they can about the victim. They use inductive and deductive reasoning, their experience and knowledge of violent behavior, the facts of the individual case and statistical probabilities. The second and third goal will involve analysis of souvenirs (taken from the victim at the crime scene) as well as the analysis of motive (usually from signature elements, or what the offender did at the scene that they didn't have to do, or from further guessing about what fantasy the offender has in mind). There's no such thing as a motiveless crime. Just because we don't understand the motive doesn't make it any less visible. "How plus Why equals Who" according to Douglas et. al (1986), and a good psychological profile is an educated attempt to provide parameters about the type of person who committed a certain crime.

Let's take a look at one taxonomy in Hazelwood and Burgess (1999) which makes the argument that profiling is a type of criminal investigative analysis performed by forensic behavioral specialists. The authors use a table like that shown below to represent the larger categories from which profiling is drawn:

Other taxonomies exist, particular those which claim profiling is drawn from the police practice of identifying likely drug traffickers in airports (Fredrickson & Siljander 2002) or from the police practice of of racial profiling on highways (Cassak & Heumann 2003). Some of these authors make broad definitional statements, such as "making use of all aspects of a case" (Ainsworth 2001), or as "a short but descriptive biography on the most outstanding characteristics of a subject" (Fredrickson & Siljander 2002).

However, it's important to remember that profiling evolved from the FBI's understanding of serial murder, and from the somewhat broad mandate of the behavioral science unit within the FBI in the early 1970s to formally introduce law enforcement to psychological and behavioral science principles. Over the 25 years in which profiling has evolved, it has retained a chameleon-like quality, and been the subject of burgeoning public interest in books, novels, movies, and television shows. Albert Alschuler (a law professor quoted in Cassak & Heumann 2003), has gone so far as to say profiling today means a number of things to different people:

On the other hand, here's a candidate for the original definition of profiling, provided by Howard Teten (a former FBI agent often regarded as the "grandfather" of profiling):

Many trace the origins of profiling as far back as the early 1800s with the efforts of criminal anthropologists to relate criminal psychology to physical characteristics of the criminal [see Lecture on Anthropological Criminology]. Jacob Fries (1773-1843) started a long line of such inquiries that extended into the late 19th century with the work of Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) and well into the 20th century with body-type theorists such as Alphonse Bertillon (1853-1914), Ernest Kretschmer (1888-1964), Ernest Hooton (1887-1954), and William Sheldon (1899-1977). There were also early legal scholars, most of them interested in the topics of insanity or responsibility, that made mention of how to infer personality characteristics from the manner and nature of crime. A significant figure in this regard is Hans Gross (1847-1915), considered by some to have started the fields of applied criminology and criminal investigation around 1891 (Gross 1924). There is a science related to applied criminology called clinical criminology, but it is practiced mostly in Israel as the study of insanity. There is a tendency in England, Australia, and Canada to attach applied criminology to what is called profiling, but the university programs there are more applied social science curricula than anything else. Lombroso's profile characteristics of murderers is contained in Lombroso-Ferrero (1972) and appears below along with Kretschmer's (1925) somototypology theory. It should be noted that although Lombrosian ideas were fairly well discredited in criminology during the 1970s, body-type theory is viewed by some as being of more than historical interest.

During the 1880s, Dr. Thomas Bond, a police surgeon, who performed the autopsy on Mary Kelly, the last of Jack the Ripper’s victims, became what some regard as the world's first profiler. He engaged in attempts at reconstructing the crime, interpreting the behaviors of the perpetrator, and coming up with signature personality characteristics for the police to investigate. The fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle in the 1890s gave us the consummate detective, Sherlock Holmes, and it was this character who springboarded profiling to popular attention. A careful reading of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries reveals that he used a form of profiling in solving case after case, and was constantly chasing after his arch nemesis, a psychopathic villain. There have, of course, been numerous fictional profilers in books and movies since Sherlock Holmes.

In 1943, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) sought the help of a psychiatrist, Walter Langer, to develop a profile of Adolph Hitler. The result was called a psychodynamic personality profile that not only pointed out Hitler's oedipal complex in needing to prove his manhood to his mother, his coprolagnia and urolagnia, but predicted that Hitler would commit suicide at war's end. This type of profiling has been used in subsequent wars since WWII. Let's focus in on this type of profiling for a second.

Between 1957 and 1972, a psychiatrist named James Brussel assisted the New York City police department and others on numerous cases of serial arson, bombing, and murder. Brussel (1968) was heavily influenced by the ideas of Kretschmer (1925), particularly the notion that mesomorphic or athletic body types were more likely to have paranoia disorders. Brussel's famous profiles include the "Mad Bomber" and the "Boston Strangler." Brussel's description in one profile was so accurate that when a man by the name of Albert DeSalvo came to the attention of authorities, he almost completely "fit" the profile that Brussels had provided. During 1973, Dr. Brussel consulted with Howard Teten of the FBI (see Focus on FBI History by Howard Teten below). The role of the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit is unquestionably an important part of the history of profiling. In 1978, after Howard Teten left the BSU, John Douglas and Robert Ressler changed the profiling process to the organized/disorganized method, which is still in use today, although that change has not been without criticism.

In late 1974, the FBI began forming its Behavioral Sciences Unit (profiling unit), led mostly by Howard Teten and Pat Mullany, who were applied criminology and hostage negotiation instructors at Quantico in the police fellow program which started in 1972. From 1975-1977, Robert Ressler, Dick Ault, and John Douglas joined the unit, took on various responsibilities, and eventually became instructors in all the various training programs in applied criminal psychology. Other instructors were Tom O'Malley and Dick Harper (who both taught sociology), and Jim Reese (an expert on stress). The FBI's VICAP team (computer reporting system) was founded in 1983 by Pierce Brooks and consisted of Anna Boudee, Ken Handfland, David Icove, and Jim Howlett. President Ronald Reagan announced the creation of NCAVC (National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime) in 1984 with its primary mission of identifying and tracking serial criminals. By 1995, the BSU (now called Investigative Support Unit to take the BS out of it) included: John Douglas, Steve Mardigian, Pete Smerick, Clint Van Zandt, Jana Monroe, Jud Ray, Jim Wright, Gregg Cooper, Gregg McCrary, Larry Androm, Steve Etter, Bill Hagmaier, and Tom Salp.

Studies have found that FBI profiling techniques are of some assistance in 77% of cases, provide leads for stakeouts solving cases 45% of the time, and actually help identify the perpetrator (or UNSUB, unknown subject) in 17% of cases (Teten 1995). Ressler and Burgess (1985) reported an inter-rater reliability that averages 76-93%. Pinizzotto has conducted other studies on the accuracy of profiling. The FBI profilers not only studied homicide, but assault, rape, sexual molestation, repetitive indecent exposure, arsonists, bombers, "nuisance offenders" (such as obscene phone callers, kleptomaniacs, voyeurs, etc.), and other ritualistic crimes. More research on the effectiveness of profiling is discussed under the Lecture on Investigative Psychology.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, academic criminologists became interested in serial killers and profiling. In fact, one of the first to do so was Philip Jenkins who, in 1988, wrote an article entitled The Serial Killer Panic of 1983-1985. The names of other criminologists include: Steve Egger, Ronald Holmes, Eric Hickey, Jack Levin, James Fox, Kim Rossmo, Bob Hale (deceased), Jack Apsche, Candice Skrapec, Hannah Scott, Richard Krause, James Sparks, Jack Olsen, Paul Cromwell, and innumerable others. Several college courses on serial killers became offered during the 1990s.

Around 1992, a number of studies were conducted by the Investigative Psychology Research Group at the University of Surrey (now the University of Liverpool) headed by David Canter. This approach was decidedly inductive (as opposed to the FBI's deductive approach) and made extensive use of geospatial principles and methods in what was once called geographic profiling (now called investigative psychological analysis). The role of Professor David Canter in the history of profiling is undeniable, and many look upon him as the founder of profiling.

Around 1997, a number of what might be called free-lance profilers started showing up on websites. One of the first of these was Brent Turvey, a graduate of the University of New Haven forensic science program, and founder of the online course provider Knowledge Solutions. Another was Maurice Godwin, a graduate of the University of Liverpool, and American professor of criminal justice. A number of others, some college professors, some not, are involved in free-lance profiling, consulting, or working cases. Brent Turvey's role has been to re-emphasize the importance of criminalistics, in an approach he calls Behavioral Evidence Analysis. Maurice Godwin's contributions have followed on the footsteps of David Canter's work, re-emphasizing the importance of geographic datasets and the use of statistical methods.

FOCUS ON THE FBI PROFILING UNIT HISTORY
(The following is from a personal correspondence with Howard Teten)

     I developed the FBI's original approach to profiling as a lecture course in 1970. The title of the course was Applied Criminology although several instructors later started calling it Psych-crim. This course was based on a concept which I had originally developed while working as a police crime scene specialist. The idea was conceived in about 1961-62. However, it was necessary to test the approach using solved cases for about 7 years and to check with several psychiatrists to ensure I was on firm ground in terms of the characteristics of the different mental problem areas before I felt it was ready for presentation.
    In 1970, when I finished the lesson plan, I was assigned to the Training Division at FBI headquarters teaching Police Administration and Management to police executives at the FBI National Academy and in road schools. (Road Schools were regional schools taught by Agents of the Training division at the request of local police departments). I was able to prevail upon my Supervisor to allow me to present the course to those local police organizations who might be interested. I gave the first presentation at an in-service for detectives held in Suffolk County (New York) Detective Division. The course went well. At the next presentation, given at Amarillo, Texas to detectives from the surrounding area, I expanded the course by asking that unsolved cases be brought in for use as examples. During the class, a profile of the offender was developed for one of the cases being utilized and the perpetrator was identified. The third presentation of the course was given at the U. S. Military Academy (West Point) to police executives of that region. Due to the fact that it had been necessary to expand the course to accommodate the time needed to profile selected unsolved cases, I asked and received the assistance of Pat Mullany, then an FBI Agent Assigned to the New York Office. This started our partnership in both teaching the course and preparing profiles on unsolved cases.
    Our new expanded FBI Academy opened in 1972. Prior to this time virtually all classes other than firearms were taught at Headquarters in Washington D. C. This included New Agent's Training, Retraining for experienced Agents, Specialized Schools for experienced Agents and the FBI National Academy. The FBI National Academy training program was a 12 week training course for police executives and managers which had been offered by the FBI twice a year since the late 1930s. Each session was made up of about 90 Officers from the various states and roughly 10 Officers from foreign countries. One of the major purposes of the new FBI Academy was to permit an expanded National Academy program. With the opening of the new Academy, two additional sessions per year were added and the class size was increased to 250 or five sections of 50 each. (The class size has since been changed to 200 Officers each).
    In order to handle the increased teaching requirements, the training division had screened all field Agents for potential instructors in the several years preceding the opening of the new Academy. Those Agents chosen were transferred to Quantico in the months and weeks before the opening of the Academy. New units were also formed to provide the needed oversight and organization necessary to ensure all students received the same material and instruction. One of the units formed was the Behavioral Science Unit. This unit, under the direction of Jack Kirsch, was responsible for all instruction in Police Community Relations, Conflict Management and Applied Criminology (which had been added to the National Academy Curriculum in 1971). The Applied Criminology courses were taught by two teams using the team teaching concept. Pat Mullany and I made up one team and Conrad Hassel with Tom Strentz made up the other team. Several Agents were also transferred in to teach other areas. These were John Phaff, (from headquarters) and Larry Monroe to teach Police community Relations as well as Dick Harper, John Minderman and Al Whitaker to teach Conflict Management (Sociology). Virtually all the profiling in those early days was done by Pat and myself. At the time, the demand for road schools in Applied criminology was high and Hassel and Strentz handled many of those schools. Within 6 months, Al Whitaker had transferred to the New Agents Training Unit and Kirsch had been promoted to an overall management position at the Academy. John Phaff was designated as Unit Chief of the BSU.
    In 1973, after reading Dr. James Brussel's. "Case Book of a Crime Psychiatrist," I visited Dr. Brussel at his home in New York. While he was for all intents and purposes, retired at that time, he was most gracious and was quite willing to discuss his approach to profiling. Over the next year or so I visited him on several occasions examining the similarities and differences in our approaches. His approach was to seek specific areas of psychiatric potential and then to combine them to form a profile. This was somewhat different from my approach which was to derive an overall impression of the gross mental status based on the crime scene as a whole. We reasoned that his method was more capable of providing detailed information while my approach was less subject to error.
    In 1974, Pat Mullany and I developed a Hostage Negotiation program using the principles underlying the profiling process. This was picked up by Hassel and Strentz who eventually specialized in this area. Also, during this year, SAs Robert Ressler, Roy Hazelwood and Dick Ault along with several others, were assigned to the Training Division, Behavioral Science Unit. The teaching load had become extremely high and with the profiling case load increasing, it had become necessary to drop the team teaching concept and to bring in additional instructor personnel. Ressler, Hazelwood and Ault were all assigned to teach Applied Criminology courses.
    Robert Ressler began conducting interviews with convicted serial killers in 1976. After a number of interviews, he was joined in this project by SA John Douglas who had joined the BSU in early 1976. This project was able to provide a significant amount of information in terms of why and how certain characteristics were found at the crime scenes. The data from these interviews, were particularly valuable in that the information allowed even those profilers who had not conducted a large number of crime scene analyses to be effective in evaluating the psychological impressions at a crime scene.
    During the period between 1973 and 1979, those agents involved in teaching the profiling courses migrated into various specialties. Hassel and Strentz went into Hostage Negotiations. Mullany (who was transferred out in 1975 or 1976) focused on negotiations and psycholinguistics; Hazelwood specialized in rapes; Tony Rider, originally a Conflict Resolution specialist, looked at arsonists; Dick Ault became interested in traitors and spies; Ken Lanning concentrated on Child Abuse and demonology.   I remained focused primarily on sexual homicides, but also used the approach to develop a program to reduce the psychological problems associated undercover operations.
    In 1979, I was promoted to chief of the research and development unit and out of BSU. That same year, Ressler and Douglas modified the original profiling approach to that commonly referred to as the Organized - Disorganized approach. This modification was primarily done to facilitate teaching profile techniques to those with little or no background in psychology.
    The program has grown considerably since 1979 and there are currently some 50 or 60 Agents preparing profiles of one type or another. In or around 1983, Pierce Brooks was brought in as a consultant to a newly formed unit developing a Violent Crime Data Base and in the mid 1980's a police fellowship program was set up to permit the training of police profilers. This was discontinued after several years, but there are some indications that it will be reinstated in the near future.
    Well that is about all I can remember off the top of my head (not from my upcoming book). Oh yes, several other things. First, the first profiler was Thomas Bond. the Autopsy Surgeon for London Metro Police at the time of the White chapel Murders (Jack the Ripper), around 1888. He based his impressions on long experience as an autopsy surgeon for the Crown, and set out what would appear to be an excellent profile. It is of course unknown how accurate he was in his analysis. Another profile of sorts was prepared by Dr. Karl Berg an autopsy surgeon involved in the Peter Kurten case in Dusseldorf in 1929. (Howard Teten)

Around 1990, the Canadian police started researching the FBI's VICAP system, as well as a few other systems in effect, mostly by state police agencies. Those state-level systems were the Iowa State Sex Crimes Analysis System, the Minnesota State Sex Crimes Analysis System (MINN/SCAP), the Washington State Homicide Investigation Tracking System (HITS), the New York State Homicide Investigation & Lead Tracking (HALT), the New Jersey Homicide Evaluation & Assessment Tracking (HEAT), and the Pennsylvania State ATAC Program. The Canadians already has a Major Case File (MCF) which collated serious, violent crimes, and their evaluation of other systems, in addition to their own approach at case linkage - which involved counting sexual assaults which theoretically could escalate into murder - resulted in a truly unique Canadian system known as ViCLAS (technically spelled ViCLAS, for Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System). The ViCLAS software also is a bit more user-friendly in the entry of data than the FBI system. The HITS database is probably the most robust, allowing 227 query capabilities.

ViCLAS produces both "confirmed" and "potential" linkages. A number of countries including, Belgium, Austria, Australia, Holland, Japan, and the United Kingdom have adopted ViCLAS and are using it as their major case linkage system as well as the American states of Tennessee and Indiana. The RCMP have given the software away free to these countries and have provided them with the necessary technical support and training to operate it.

The Dutch contribution, which is chronicled in Jackson & Berkerian (1997), involves pilot studies which compare the effectiveness of detective work versus profiler-assisted work. Since the mid-1990s, there have been at least four Dutch studies which made such a comparison. The general thrust of this line of research, like that done in other countries such as Canada, is that profiling is a tool that works best when used in conjunction with standard investigatory techniques.

A recent addition to the history of profiling has been geographical profiling. Although it could be argued crime mapping has an extensive history (perhaps going back to the origins of criminology in the first place), Rossmo (2000) is typical of modern-day profilers who draw upon environmental criminology (Brantingham & Brantingham 1981; 1984) and its evolution up through behavioral geography, hot spot analysis, nearest neighbor analysis, and the criminology of place. It is a misconception that Kim Rossmo invented geographic profiling. As Maurice Godwin reports on his Godwin Consultancy website, it was the late Dr. Milton Newton (geographer) at LSU (the Baton Rouge area) who originally developed geographical profiling back in 1985. This area of criminology is difficult to summarize, so the following comments should only be taken as a sampling.

The most basic concept in geography and/or geographic profiling is "nearness" which in psychology has the equivalent concept of "least effort." The principle of least effort (Zipf 1950) holds that a person considering all the possibilities for action will most likely select the course of action which involves the least expenditure of effort. When distance is involved, one also has to account for subjective, psychological perceptions of distance, which varies by familiarity with the terrain, among other things. Humans tend to move thru geographical areas utilizing cognitive maps, sometimes called "mental maps" which, in the person's mind, contain images of paths, borders (edges), and landmarks, among other things. Habitual areas are called "activity spaces" and within those spaces are "anchor points," and criminals, like anyone else, operate within the confines of those spaces and points, no matter how stable or nomadic they are (nomadic criminals simply have fewer anchor points). A number of sophisticated statistical techniques (proximity statistics) can then be applied to standard crime maps and used to predict offender residence location. Proximity statistics include the spatial mean, standard distance, centroid, k-nearest neighbor, mean interpoint, and furthest neighbor. Connecting nearest neighbor analysis to a Poisson probability distribution allows for an analysis of deviation from randomness, so at the very least, non-random patterns can be uncovered, theoretically, from any random pattern.

Investigative psychology is the term for geographic profiling used in the U.K., and there, the Canter technique (Canter & Heritage 1990) is commonly used, involving a five-factor model constructed from facet theory and smallest space analysis (SSA). Facet theory was first introduced by Guttman in the 1940s (see Lecture on Scales and Indexes) and is a kind of multidimensional scaling which allows a researcher to conceive of theoretically important concepts in terms of facets of structure (a means of expressing theoretically important statements in a formal grammar akin to set theory in Euclidean geometry) that may not be additive or linear. Facet theory usually focuses on memberships and classes rather than point-estimates, and it is the kind of profiling usually taught at places like the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Rossmo's (2000) geographic profiling method has the benefit of being most commercialized into computer applications [see ECRI's Rigel system] to produce topographic maps based on the locations of a series of similar crimes. These maps graph the "jeopardy surface," or likelihood that some area is the location of the killer's home or base of operation, and they are then superimposed on street maps where the crimes are pinpointed, and the result can be thought of as a sort of "fingerprint" of the offender's cognitive map. According to Bartol & Bartol (2004), geographic profiling usually refers to when spatial pattern analysis is conducted to catch one, single, serial offender; and the phrases "geographic mapping" or "hot spot analysis" usually refer to when spatial pattern analysis is conducted to catch multiple offenders.

Contemporary uses of computerized profiling can be found in homeland security (see Lecture on Border and Transportation Security) where it is widely known that passenger profiling goes on in the post-9/11 environment. For quite a while, the airline industry used CAPPS, an automated system which scores each airline passenger's profile to identify those who might pose a threat to civil aviation. 10 out of the 19 hijackers in the 9/11 attack were identified via the CAPPS system (unfortunately, nothing much was done about it). CAPPS II is a TSA database which combines the profiling capabilities of CAPPS with linkages to other governmental and commercial databases. CTC or the CIA's counterterrorist center exploits all-source information in efforts to profile terrorist groups and members.

In the war on drugs (see Lecture Notes for War on Drugs), the DEA relies somewhat on DAWN (Drug Abuse Warning Network) which monitors drug mentions in police records across the nation's major cities as well as hospital overdose admissions. When combined with other databases, there are two benefits: one, the ability to plan how many law enforcement resources are needed in a domestic area; and two, the ability to profile any new trafficking trends for how drugs get into the United States.

With normal (nondomestic) homicides, New York's HALT (Homicide Assessment and Lead Tracking) system should be mentioned, as should Michigan's HITS (Homicide Investigative Tracking System), and of course, the FBI's VICAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program). These have all been in existence for awhile (since the early 1980s). VICAP alerts are frequently posted at the end of current issues of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. As far as is known, no empirical studies exist regarding the comparative effectiveness of computerized profiling versus human profiling. Computers should be seen as a tool and not a substitute for human intelligence. The primary problem area involves competent handling of the data, and not necessarily the design or algorithms in computer programs, although some programs go beyond mimicking human intelligence in quite unusual ways (see Internet Security Mega-site for a list of such computer programs).

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