Includes bibliographical references (p. 185-194) and index.

Machine generated contents note: 1 Offender profiling - separating m yth from reality -- Is there consensus on what constitutes profiling? - - What does profiling involve? -- What do 'profiles' look like? -- Can the goals of profiling be identified? -- Are there different kinds of p rofiling? -- What knowledge do profilers need? -- Concluding comments - - Further reading -- 2 Criminal behaviour and its motivation -- Explana tions of criminal behaviour -- Genetic and individual factors -- Twin s tudies -- Family influences -- Personality theories -- Social learning theories -- Concluding comments -- Further reading -- 3 Environmental i nfluences and patterns of offending -- The influence of the environment -- Defensible space -- Is the environment entirely deterministic? -- M odern housing and its possible effects -- People's needs and environmen tal provision -- Designing environments which might reduce -- crime lev els -- Situational crime prevention -- Crime displacement -- Environmen tal effects on target selection -- Is crime 'normal? -- Repeat victimis ation -- Concluding comments -- Further reading -- 4 Problems and pitfa lls in the gathering of data -- The reporting and recording of offences -- False reporting of 'crimes' -- How can we know how much crime is co mmitted? -- Police recording of crime -- Other ways in which biases may be produced -- Human perception and memory -- The interviewing of susp ects -- Concluding comments -- Further reading -- 5 Crime mapping and g eographical profiling -- The geography of crime -- The Chicago School - - The importance of place -- Crime hot spots -- Combining geographical and temporal information -- on crime -- Is such information useful? -- Problems and difficulties with geographic profiling -- Concluding comme nts -- Further reading -- 6 Early approaches to profiling -- The develo pment of the FBI's first profiling system -- Other classifications - se lfish v unselfish rapists -- Further classification of rapists -- What functions might categorisation have? -- How useful is the FBI's approac h? -- Concluding comments -- Further reading -- 7 Investigative psychol ogy and the work of David Canter -- The psychological underpinnings of Canter's work -- Canter's work on crime locations -- Concluding comment s -- Further reading -- 8 Clinical and other approaches -- The Dutch ap proach to profiling -- Contributions from forensic psychiatry and clini cal -- psychology -- The work of Paul Britton -- Comparing different ap proaches to profiling -- Concluding comments -- Further reading -- 9 Cu rrent developments and future prospects -- Canter's more recent work -- Other recent British work -- Stalking -- Concluding comments -- Furthe r reading -- Conclusions -- How useful is offender profiling? -- Refere nces -- Index.