A criminal profile is best defined as a submitted report utilizing information and approaches from various social and behavioral sciences, and focusing on a specific type of violent crime (Holmes, 82). Normally, the profile provides a list of information intended to help law enforcement agencies in their investigation of a crime. The main focus of the criminal profile is on the social and behavioral characteristics of the killer. Some authorities perceive criminal profiling as a combination of brainstorming, intuition and educated guesses, however, the criminal profiling process is far more complex than that. Accurate profiling requires a careful compilation of theories and premises from psychology, sociol

A medical autopsy is another tool used by the criminal profiler. The medical examination should include all of the information needed to answer the many questions the profiler may have. The normal items included in the autopsy write up include height, weight, blood type, and eye color. As well as the basic information, the medical examination should provide all the items that relate to the particular case, such as bite marks etc. Often times, a serial killer will have a certain ritual that he/she followed during the murder, and the examination should indicate signs of that type of behavior, such as missing body parts, sex organs and mutilation. A profiler pays very close attention to whether or not there is sperm present in or on the victim, because DNA tests can be done on such evidence.

There are two main approaches to criminal profiling, the first being deductive criminal profiling. This approach focuses on the behavioral evidence analysis of a specific criminal, crime scene, and victim exclusively from forensic evidence relating to the crime scene and victim of that offender alone (“Deductive Criminal Profiling”).

The FBI’s own, agent McNamara commented on the accuracy of FBI profiling. He stated, “Profiling is only as good as the profiler. If you have a skilled profiler, you get a good product” (Glazer, 18). He says his twenty five profilers all have at least ten years of street experience as FBI investigators, and two years on his profiling unit. “If you get the ‘wannabees’ or con men out there who are on TV a lot who claim to be profilers, or even retired profilers who don’t have access to all the case materials, you get a lot of bum steers,” (Glazer, 18). McNamara later commented. Some academics agree that profiles do have promise. “It works for certain kinds of crimes, those primarily that have some kind of sexual motivation…because those are the kinds of things that manifest themselves at the crime scene, says McNamara.” (Glazer, 18).

By using all the information provided by the police agency requesting the criminal profile, it is possible for the profiler to develop more than just an

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