Offender profiling
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Offender profiling is a behavioral and investigative tool that is intended to help investigators to profile unknown criminal subjects or offenders. Offender profiling is also known as criminal profiling, criminal personality profiling, criminological profiling, behavioral profiling or criminal investigative analysis. Geographic profiling is another method to profile an offender. Television shows such as Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Profiler in the 1990s, the 2005 television series Criminal Minds, and the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs have lent many names to what the FBI calls "criminal investigative analysis."
Profiling in popular culture
Several films focus on profilers investigating on criminal cases. For example:
- The Sniper
- Manhunter
- The Silence of the Lambs
- Copycat
- Suspect Zero
- Mindhunters
- Citizen X
- Gothika
- X-Files
- Murder By Numbers
- Taking Lives
- The Poughkeepsie Tapes
Several television shows also focus on or feature profilers:
- Det. Robert Goren (played by Vincent D'Onofrio) of Law & Order: Criminal Intent is a criminal profiler. His mentor Dr. Declan Gage, played by John Glover, is known as one of the first modern-day criminal profilers.
- Special Agent Caitlin Todd and M.E. Donald "Ducky" Mallard from NCIS.
- Special Agent Megan Reeves of Numb3rs played by Diane Farr is a criminal profiler who chooses which suspects are suitable and which are not.
- The Kay Scarpetta book series (written by Patricia Cornwell) also features Benson Wesley, an FBI Criminal Profiler based in Quantico, Virginia. He is featured in many of the books and displays the disciplines and skills of a criminal profiler.
- The UK television series Wire in the Blood features clinical psychologist Dr. Tony Hill played by Robson Green who profiles serial killers.
- The UK television series Cracker focuses on a psychologist who aids police in forming profiles and interrogating suspects.
- Profiler, an NBC TV series, focused on a profiler whose insights manifested themselves in visions.
- Criminal Minds, a CBS TV series, focuses on an FBI team who utilize profiling.
- Millennium, a TV series centered around Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) an ex-FBI criminal profiler who consulted with the FBI for a group called the Millennium group.
- In season 2 of Dexter, Special Agent Frank Lundy, played by Keith Carradine, applies his expert profiling skill to the hunt for the "Bay Harbor Butcher".
- In the South Korean drama IRIS, Seung Hee Choi, played by Kim Tae Hee is a profiler for the NSS or National Security Service.
In Video Game culture:
- Heavy Rain: One of the four playable characters is FBI agent, Norman Jayden. He is responsible for developing a profile for the main antagonist in the game, the Origami Killer.
- Deadly Premonition: The main character, Francis York Morgan, is an FBI Special Agent whose profiling specialty involves killers of young women.
See also
- Behavioral Analysis Unit
- FBI method of profiling
- Forensic profiling
- Forensic psychology
- Investigative psychology
