Analysis of Geographical Profiling in Criminal Investigations Report

This report provides an overview of criminal profiling, focusing on geographical profiling techniques used in crime investigation. It discusses the role of geographic profiling in identifying potential criminal residences and predicting offender behavior, referencing Kim Rossmo's contributions and the use of information technology in tracking criminals. The report highlights the application of geographical profiling by agencies like the FBI and Scotland Yard, while also acknowledging its limitations, such as its primary suitability for serial offenders. Furthermore, it touches upon various crime theories, including economic, political, and psychological factors. The report concludes by assessing the effectiveness and validity of geographical profiling as an investigative tool, emphasizing the need for further research and its potential to aid police officers in solving crimes more efficiently by understanding the relationship between criminals and their environment. Desklib offers this report as a study resource, providing students access to similar solved assignments and study tools.

Element CW1
REPORT ON
PROFILING AND
GEGRAPHICAL
PROFILING

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8
Books and Journals:....................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The term criminal profiling can be understood as the study of the environmental
conditions and nature of individual which makes a person criminal under the eyes of the law.
This means that the external and the internal factors are responsible for making an innocent a
criminal. It studies the behaviour of an individual when he lives in the society. The expert in
profiling deeply studies every act and behaviour of an individual because of which the
individual has become the criminal(Adeyiga, Olabiyisi and Omidiora, 2020). This is basically a
scientific method used by the psychologists to understand the mental condition of the individual.
It involves logical reasoning in this study. This report would explain about the role of
geographical profiling in finding criminals in the society. It would also outline the ways through
which the police uses the geographical profiling in convicting the offenders.
Main Body
The term geographic profiling means a management system which is based on
information system that explains about the most susceptible residence of the criminals of the
country. It explains the geographical area where these criminals often resides and commits
various crimes on a regular basis. In these places, these person also do training acts of
committing crimes in the society. There are various conditions where the innocent people are
taken to these criminal residence and they area also being trained to commit the crimes like
murder. These criminals are generally involved in the serious type of crime related to the death
of the person(Bataille, et.al, 2018). There are also various conditions where they take money
from others in order to do criminal acts in the country. These offenders are generally the serial
killers who are regularly involved in these type of crimes. The crimes done by these criminals
are rape, arson, murder, bombings and robbery. It also involves the groups of terrorists. These
terrorist are very dangerous for the society. This is because they are involved in giving trainings
related to huge bombings in the residential area of the society. Moreover, when these bombings
occur, then there a huge loss to property and lives of nth innocent person in the society.
The geographic profiling was introduced by the Kim Rossmo in the thesis done by him in
doctorate in year 2011. The geographic profiling would include the serial killers who are residing
in the very probable area of the country. The visual cues also plays a very important role in
understanding the type of offender in the geographical profiling as done by the experts. There are

various experts involved in the geographic profiling which aid the police officers in finding the
serious criminals of the society. The geographical profiling is mainly done in the places where
the offenders regularly goes. For instance, in case when Rossmo was doing his thesis, he has
taken an instance where the criminal has used the cigarettes, glove box, Parker pen, shirt and
alcohol. So, Rossmo used the geographical areas where the offender regularly goes to purchase
all these things that are being required by the offender on daily basis like alcohol and cigarettes.
So, it helped to find that specific offender when he was convicted to do the second rape at a
particular space. So, when Rossmo used these locations which was regularly used by the
offender, he got the clue where the offender is residing. Hence, it helped the police in finding the
residence of the person who has committed the rape in the society second time. So, this is a very
logical way through which the offenders can be convicted by the police police officers by
tracking the location of the criminal(Butkovic, et.al ,2019).
This has all become possible because of the information technology used by the experts
while tracking the exact location of the offender. Moreover, this has helped the police in finding
the serious criminals who are impossible to get convicted in the absence of the information
technology. Moreover, by finding this the Rossmo found the two locations namely the
Killingbeck and the Millgarth districts of UK. There after, the investigation was started in these
two areas with the aid of fingerprint of the offender. This method is very accurate as used by the
officers because of the involvement of the technology in it. Moreover, the profiling based on the
geographical areas are mainly based on the colour, accuracy and the speed of the computers that
are being used by the experts in the procedure of finding the offenders in the specified time. It
explains that the criminals are just like the normal persons who has the same tendency of work as
the normal people have in their regular lives. So, in conditions where the technology is not
working, then normal mental human mind can be used to reason the given conditions of the case.
This would also aid in finding the criminal on time. The cases where the geographical profiling
is accurately used are the FBI, Scotland Yard, Virginia State Police along with various other
police agencies in UK. It also involves forensic science testing s that are being used to solve the
cases of offenders in the society. The geographic profiling also requires the prime assessment for
the information technology(Górski, 2022).
There are also various limitations with respect to the geographic profiling in the country.
The main disadvantage is that it best suits in case of serial offenders. So, in conditions where

there is no serial crime then it would be not effective. This is because of the less suspect in the
cases of the offenders. There are also various impulsive offenders who are involved in this type
of crime. Moreover, the geographic crime mainly focuses on the geography of the crime,
selection of the target, murder of children, case examples, strategies of investigation, etc. It is
mainly based on the individual hunting behaviour through which the experts can be able to locate
the actual position of the offender where he is living in the society(Kipane, 2019).
There are different types of theories of crime. These theories are the economic theory,
biological theory, political, psychological and social theory of crime. All these theories explains
different factors because of which crime is being committed by an individual in the society. The
economic theory explains that the crime is committed due to lack of money to an individual. The
robbery is the best example of economic theory. This explains that a person commits robbery
when he requires money. The political theory explains that crime is occurred because of the
politics in the country. There are several situations where it can be seen that the profiling is not
taken as the prime tool for investigation. This is because the legal system does not considers the
profiling as a main tool to identify the criminal. But still, it is used by the experts in finding the
serial killers of the country. It become very easy to find the offenders by the aid of the
geographic profiling. There are two basic reasons for this. The first reason is that a criminal
profile just gives a broad indicant of only type of individual who may has bound up with the
crime. Moreover, it does not betoken a specific single who happens to be best fitted in the
profile. Hence, the profiler is unable to tell that whether it is more likely than not that a limited
offender did commit a crime in the society. The second reason is that there is no scientific
evidence to aid the dependability and validity of geographical profiling while solving the cases
of crimes(Petherick and Brooks, 2021).
Indeed, it appears that when profiling is not assisting the police in solving a case or in
beginning up new inquiry, then this is a exception rather than a rule. On the other hand, it could
not be denied that criminal identification has proven assistive in various cases like albeit or
exceptional cases in the courts of the nation. However, more research requires to be done before
criminal profiling would earn its point as a valued forensic tool. Further more, a variation of
profiling that has elicited some interest in news media is scientific discipline autopsy that
includes the compilation of a psychological visibility of especially well-known dead individuals.
This can also be used in suicide cases. The example for this is to determine whether deceased

could indeed have pledged suicide or not. Moreover, in the case of criminal profiling, its
dependability and validity is too questioned.
The geographic profiling is very effective in the present times as it is very subsequently
used by the criminals in the country. There is a study which explains that 113 police
investigators are using the geographical profiling for solving the cases in UK. In the same report,
it has been specified that 63.7% respondents are agreeing with the point that geographical
profiling is very effective investigation tool in criminal system of UK. This is because it eases
the process of searching the criminals in the boundary of UK. In addition to this, a total of 31.8%
agreed that the experts of profilers aid police in identifying the offenders. The 15.0% agreed that
it does not involve any type of risk in profiler misdirecting along with its investigation. There
are also 61.5% of the respondents who has reported to use a profile which agreed that profiling is
assistive in future(Ugo and Alessio, 2022).
Moreover, the Geographical approach involves that there is a link between the criminal
and its home where he resides regularly most of the time. So, when police get to know about the
various locations that are used by the offender on nth regular basis then it would become very
easy to solve the case in the shorter period of time as compare to other options of finding the
case. These are also various cases which shows the efficient use of criminal profiling in the
process of investigation as done by the department of investigation of UK. The geographical
condition also aid in understanding the behaviour of the criminal in finding the offender of the
case. The other behavioural theory of crime also explains that the behaviour plays a very
important part in the commitment of crime in the country. For instance, if any individual is very
anxious and short tempered then there are the cases that he can do violent act which would result
into crime. The regular habit of intoxication can also result into the commencement of the violent
crime in the country. Hence, the geographic profiling aids the police officer in investigating the
specified crime in the shorter period of time(Whiteley, 2021).

CONCLUSION
The above report concludes about the concept of offender profiling in the criminal
system. It mainly explains about the concept of geographical profiling of offender in the society.
This report also summarises about the positive and the negative aspects of the geographical
profiling in the criminal legal system of UK. This report also concludes that how the
geographical profiling aid the criminal in finding the offender of the crime. Moreover, it also
explains about the various ways through which the serial criminals can be identified in the
society. It uses the residence address by tracking the location of the offender of the crime. All
this is possible only because of the technology. This report also summarises the crime theories of
the criminal system of UK.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Adeyiga, J.A., Olabiyisi, S.O. and Omidiora, E.O., 2020. A comparative analysis of selected
clustering algorithms for criminal profiling. Nigerian Journal of Technology, 39(2),
pp.464-471.
Bataille, C.P., et.al , 2018. A bioavailable strontium isoscape for Western Europe: A machine
learning approach. PloS one, 13(5), p.e0197386.
Butkovic, A., et.al , 2019. Geographic profiling for serial cybercrime investigation. Digital
Investigation, 28, pp.176-182.
Górski, M., 2022. Geographic Profiling and Event Prediction for Seventeenth-and Eighteenth-
Century Pirates. The Professional Geographer, pp.1-11.
Kipane, A., 2019. Meaning of profiling of cybercriminals in the security context. In SHS Web of
Conferences (Vol. 68, p. 01009). EDP Sciences.
Petherick, W. and Brooks, N., 2021. Reframing criminal profiling: a guide for integrated
practice. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 28(5), pp.694-710.
Ugo, S. and Alessio, P., 2022. An analysis about the accuracy of geographic profiling in relation
to the number of observations and the buffer zone. Journal of Geographical Systems,
pp.1-16.Ugo, S. and Alessio, P., 2022. An analysis about the accuracy of geographic
profiling in relation to the number of observations and the buffer zone. Journal of
Geographical Systems, pp.1-16.
Whiteley, C., 2021. Criminal Profiling: A Forensic and Criminal Psychology Guide to FBI And
Statistical Profiling (Vol. 26). CGD Publishing.