Geographic profiling
Geographic profiling is a criminal investigative technique that utilizes information about the geographic locations of crimes to infer characteristics and possible identities of unknown offenders. Emerging from disciplines such as epidemiology and environmental psychology, it has become an integral part of crime mapping, particularly in the context of serial offenses. This method analyzes patterns of crime locations to predict where a suspect may live or operate, based on the principle that criminals often target areas close to their homes, while maintaining a certain distance to avoid detection.
Historically, geographic profiling gained prominence in the early 1980s when forensic investigator Stuart Kind applied it to the cases linked to the Yorkshire Ripper. A decade later, investigative psychologist David Canter further developed the method in the Railway Rapist case, leading to the creation of software designed for these analyses. The technique rests on psychological principles such as the "least effort" theory, which suggests that individuals, including criminals, prefer to exert minimal energy in their actions.
While geographic profiling has been increasingly adopted by law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and Europe, it is not without its critics, who question the reliability of the assumptions underpinning the method. The rise of geographic information system (GIS) technology and other monitoring tools has the potential to enhance the effectiveness of geographic profiling, raising questions about privacy and the ethical implications of surveillance in modern society.
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Geographic profiling
DEFINITION: Use of information about geographic locations and their connections to draw conclusions about the probable characteristics and identity of unknown offenders.
SIGNIFICANCE: With roots in epidemiology, environmental psychology, and criminal personality profiling, geographic profiling has helped to popularize the idea of crime mapping as a tool in the investigation of serial criminals.
Law-enforcement investigators draw conclusions about criminals from facts about crimes. Geographic profiling (also known, in various versions, as geographical offender profiling, psychogeographic profiling, geoforensic analysis, and geoprofiling) begins with the pattern of locations of a series of (apparently) connected crimes. In December 1980, British forensic investigator Stuart Kind made calculations relating the locations and times of thirteen murders during the preceding six years attributed to an unknown criminal dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper by the news media. Kind’s projection of the probable base of action for the killer, made on the assumption that he attacked later in the day the closer he was to home, proved to be accurate when Peter Sutcliffe was arrested for the crimes a month later (although Kind’s information played no role in the arrest).
In the mid-1980s, English investigative psychologist David Canter independently discovered related techniques through his involvement in the so-called Railway Rapist case. With his associate Malcolm Huntley, Canter developed a software program (called Dragnet) to computerize the calculations. “It did not occur to me,” Canter later stated, “that this might be a process that could be given a catchy name and turned into a commercial product.” Both were soon done in British Columbia, Canada, by D. Kim Rossmo, who, working on his PhD at Simon Fraser University and building on earlier work in environmental criminology by Paul and Patricia Brantingham, developed his own approach to what he labeled “geographic profiling.” By analyzing links within the spatial and temporal distribution of a criminal’s activity, it is sometimes possible to determine what brought perpetrator and victim together and thereby to gain clues about the location, and possibly the motivation, of the offender. Most individuals live within relatively restricted patterns of movement (home, work, shopping, entertainment, school, vacation, and so on). The psychological principle of “least effort” suggests that human beings tend to attempt to reach their goals with the least expenditure of energy. Another psychological principle postulates that criminals prefer not to let their crimes occur too close to home and predicts the existence of a “buffer zone” between an offender’s base and where that person commits crimes. Under the influence of both principles—laziness and caution—criminals typically commit crimes close to home but not too close.
What is “too close” has not been determined, however, and critics have questioned whether such abstract principles are reliable and when they might apply. Proponents of geographic profiling are confident that sufficient empirical study of habitual offender patterns can provide substantive content for these principles, whereas critics attack what they see as undefended assumptions and the failure of proponents to place behavioral information in its proper context. As the technique proved increasingly useful in understanding serial crime, it became used by more and more law enforcement agencies in the United States and Europe.
As geographic information system (GIS) technologies and other forms of social monitoring continue to advance, a condition of universal surveillance increasingly emerges, and the resulting pervasive information about people’s locations can support more comprehensive and effective geographic profiling. Already, technological innovations—from traffic cameras to global positioning devices to facial recognition software—seem to point in that direction.
Bibliography
Brown, Tiffany. "That Time GIS Stopped a Serial Killer." GEO Jobe, 6 Oct. 2021, geo-jobe.com/mapthis/that-time-gis-stopped-a-serial-killer. Accessed 14 Aug. 2024.
Canter, David. Mapping Murder: The Secrets of Geographical Profiling. London: Virgin, 2003. Print.
Canter, David, and Donna Youngs, eds. Principles of Geographical Offender Profiling: A Reader. Burlington: Ashgate, 2007. Print.
"Overview of Geographic Profiling." Texas State University, 2024, www.txst.edu/gii/geographic-profiling/overview.html. Accessed 14 Aug. 2024.
Petherick, Wayne. The Science of Criminal Profiling. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2005. Print.
Rossmo, D. Kim. Geographic Profiling. Boca Raton: CRC, 1999. Print.