Behavioral Analysis & Criminal Profiling Meetup Group

This group aims to establish a foundation for correctly understanding the concepts of Behavioural Analysis and Criminal Profiling and to identify the principal disciplines that provide a comprehensive overview of professional practice in these fields.

Behavioural Analysis focuses on identifying and interpreting, as accurately as possible, the principal verbal and non-verbal behavioural characteristics that distinguish a trustworthy person from someone who possesses or fabricates important information.

Within police investigations, Behavioural Analysis involves developing the psychological and behavioural profiles of the “actors involved in a crime”, the suspect, victim, perpetrator and witness, by examining their interaction with the environment across a continuum encompassing pre-offence, offence and post-offence behaviour.

Criminal Profiling is “a tool in the investigator’s toolbox.” This means that profiling does not solve a case on its own, but it can help accelerate the identification and apprehension of the offender.

More broadly, the FBI defines criminal profiling as “the process of analysing a crime or series of crimes and developing an overall perspective on the behaviour of an unknown offender” (McGrary, 2004).