Offender Profiles
Investigative Advice to Police: "Offender Profiles"
Professor Canter and his team have developed a structured protocol for providing investigative support (from suspect identification and crime linking to evidence/authorship assessment) in relation to crimes of all types, one off and serial offences. This advice draws on the extensive "offender profiling" research conducted within the Int. Centre for Investigative Psychology (ICIP) over the last 15 years. The ICIP is the foremost centre for this type of research in the world and retains extensive databases as well as specialist software, to allow systematic, empirical and objective input to assist investigators and analysts. For further information contact info@davidcanter.com
David Canter became known internationally in 1986 for the "offender profile" that helped the police to catch the "Railway Rapist" and serial killer John Duffy. This was the first time such a contribution was made to a police investigation by a Professor of Psychology anywhere. It was also the first time that "offender profiling" had been used by the UK police.
Since 1986 Prof Canter has contributed to over 150 investigations around the world of many different kinds of crimes, as varied as arson, armed robbery, stabbings, contested confessions, anonymous offensive letters, serial rape and murder.
The success of the early profiles set David Canter on track to develop a science-based approach to helping police investigations that he called "Investigative Psychology". His account of this work with the police and the development of the new discipline of Investigative Psychology was published in 1994 in his award winning book Criminal Shadows. Case studies focusing on geographical profiling contributions to investigations are discussed in Mapping Murder.
