Geographic profiling is a criminal investigation methodology that analyzes the locations of a connected series of crimes to determine the most probable area of where the offender would live.
This method helps investigators prioritize geographical information in large-scale major crime investigations that often involve hundreds or even thousands of suspects and tips.
What is the Basis of Geographic Profiling?
The basis of geographic profiling is the link between geographic crime site information and the known propensities of serial criminals in their selection of a target victim and location.
It is known that an offender will usually be familiar with a particular geographical area before he or she begins selecting crimes to commit. Once investigators have a lot of geographic data they will be able to see where the offender’s movement patterns intersect within this geographical area. This will largely determine where the crime takes place.
Geographical Information - Map of the Most Probable Location
One of the reasons this is becoming a valuable investigation tool is that the geographic profiling system produces a map of the most probable location of the criminal’s center of activity, which in most cases is the offender’s residence. This can be linked to all the other data available relating to crime incidents.
Think of it this way, if psychological profiling is the "who," then geographic profiling is the "where."
Originally designed for violent crime investigations, geographic profiling is increasingly being used in property crime cases as a helpful investigative tool.
Kim Rossmo Developed Geographic Profiling
The name most associated with this form of criminal investigation is that of former Vancouver detective inspector, Kim Rossmo, who in 1995 wrote a doctoral dissertation at Simon Fraser University's School of Criminology on a method of geographical profiling that has become the cornerstone of geographic profiling.
The Vancouver Police Department established the world's first Geographic Profiling Section in 1995.
Rossmo developed a computer program, Criminal Geographic Targeting (CGT), which assesses the spatial characteristics of a crime.
At present several major software programs are being employed by police agencies to perform geographic profiling tasks, including Rigel®, CrimeStat, and Dragnet.
Geographic Information Management
Like psychological profiling, geographic profiling does not solve cases. It is one of the many tools used in a criminal investigation that helps manage the large volume of information typically generated in major crime investigations.
Street Addresses are one of the common elements in most record systems, added to all the other leads and clues that are gathered in the course of an investigation, geographic profiling can be used in a variety of contexts as a powerful decision-support tool. There is no doubt that geographic crime patterns are powerful clues that, once decoded, can point to an offender.
Sources:
Geographic Profiling. National Institute of Justice.
Geographic Profiling 101 by Katherine Ramsland. Tru TV Crime Library.
Geographic Profiling. All About Forensic Psychology.
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