Criminal Profiling Essay

Introduction

Criminal profiling, first undertaken within the nineteen-seventies, has been used throughout thousands of police investigations from bureaus all over the globe, currently some question their practicality in police investigations. This essay argues the utility of offender profiling in police investigations. Police Investigations utilize Offender and Criminal Profiling methods because it narrows the field of investigation, needs diminutive physical evidence to begin investigations and uses victimology to predict future actions of the offender.

Body Paragraphs

Used all over the world, Offender profiling can be used to narrow the field of investigation for law enforcement. The four different approaches of criminal profiling can be

Investigators using the practice of criminal profiling follows a process throughout the investigation. This commences with an evaluation of the malefaction scene and the malefactor act or acts itself, then an evaluation of the specifics of the malefaction scene/s. An analysis of the victim and preliminary police reports are then conducted before an examination of the autopsy report. Ending with developing a profile with offender characteristics, suggesting possible suspects utilizing the profile constructed and last possible apprehension of the suspect ("What Is Criminal Profiling And Why It Is Important | Twisted Minds - a website about serial killers", 2017).

Although physical proof is vital in police investigations, when there's depleted evidence present at the crime scene, offender profiles are often created to lead law enforcement towards physical evidence and possible suspects. This is important as physical evidence such as fingerprints, fibres and biological evidence, aids to establish the guilt or innocence of potential suspects, although criminal profiling can be used in court it itself is not evidence but built of evidence from the crime scene to establish