1st Edition

Applications of Geographical Offender Profiling

Edited By David Canter, Donna Youngs Copyright 2008
    274 Pages
    by Routledge

    274 Pages
    by Routledge

    Many law enforcement agencies are now analyzing where a crime is committed, to develop predictions on the offender, their location and other factors that could help with the investigation. Known as Geographical Offender Profiling (GOP), this approach relies on a combination of principles and methodologies drawn from many different disciplines, including psychology, geography, criminology and forensic science. This book brings together a cross-section of the major papers published in the field of GOP to explain the scope and application of GOP in different criminal contexts. For the first time some widely quoted but difficult to obtain 'classic' papers have been published together with an introduction that provides an up-to-the-minute context and an extensive bibliography of the most relevant publications in this burgeoning area of study.

    Contents: Preface; Part 1 Empirical Bases: Geographical offender profiling: applications and opportunities, David Canter and Donna Youngs; A multivariate analysis of serial murderers' disposal site location choice, Samantha Lundrigan and David Canter; Offender characteristics and spatial mobility: an empirical study and some policy implications, Thomas Gabor and Ellen Gottheil; The environmental range of serial rapists, David Canter and Paul Larkin; The road to robbery: travel patterns in commercial robberies, Peter J. van Koppen and Robert W.J. Jansen. Part 2 Stylistic Variations: Crime scene and distance correlates of serial rape, Janet Warren, Roland Reboussin, Robert R. Hazelwood, Andrea Cummings, Natalie Gibbs and Susan Trumbetta; An examination of the relationship between distance travelled and motivational aspects of arson, Katarina Fritzon; The journey to rape: geographic distance and the rapist's method of approaching the victim, James L. LeBeau; Characteristics of serial arsonists and crime scene geography in Japan, Masayuki Tamura and Mamoru Suzuki. Part 3 Investigative Directions: Predicting serial killers' home base using a decision support system, David Canter, Toby Coffey, Malcolm Huntley and Christopher Missen; Linking commercial burglaries by modus operandi: tests using regression and ROC analysis, Craig Bennell and David Canter; Predicting home location of serial offenders: a preliminary comparison of the accuracy of human judges with a geographical profiling system, Brent Snook, David Canter and Craig Bennell; Commentary - confusing operational predicaments and cognitive explorations: comments on Rossmo and Snook, et al., David Canter; A comparison of the efficacy of different decay functions in geographical profiling for a sample of US serial killers, David Canter and Laura Hammond: Bibliography of geographical profiling; Index.

    Biography

    David Canter is Professor of Psychology, University of Huddersfield, UK. He is editor of the International Library of Psychology and the Offender Profiling series, and is one of the leading experts in the field of criminal profiling. Donna Youngs is Research Fellow at the International Centre for Investigative Psychology and Vice-President of the International Academy for Investigative Psychology.