Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioural Evidence Analysis
- PDF / 80,535 Bytes
- 2 Pages / 595 x 842 pts (A4) Page_size
- 95 Downloads / 204 Views
Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioural Evidence Analysis by Brent Turvey London: Academic Press (1999) ISBN 0 12 705040 X (504 pages, £49.95)
Reviewed by Andrew Silke The last five years have seen a literal flood of books on the topic of offender profiling, with many more books promised. This flood has been largely the result of a constantly high public interest in the area, steadily fuelled by television dramas and Hollywood movies. With such a background driving publication, it is not surprising that the quality of the books has varied enormously. Turvey’s book, Criminal Profiling, probably holds something of a middle ground between the truly excellent and the truly awful. The book is aimed at a general, non-specialised audience and has the flaws and advantages of any book with such targets. It is readable, accessible, user-friendly, and it attempts to paint a broad picture. On the downside, it lacks depth in many places, it tends to over-emphasise the more sensationalist elements, and—with a few notable exceptions—unless research has been carried out in the US it tends not to be mentioned or discussed in the book. The latter is a great pity as some of the best research on the subject has been conducted outside of the US. Nevertheless, it is clear that Turvey is painfully aware of the current factional, selfish and disjointed state of the profiling community. A dire lack of collaboration and co-operation between profilers is the unfortunate result of near-constant personality clashes between leading profilers. A culture of backbiting and close-mindedness has come to dominate in both the US and the UK. Turvey— quite sensibly—argues that: the time for isolationism and for sectionalism is over. The time for politics is also over. The criminal-profiling community cannot continue to play to the images portrayed in the popular media and expect to achieve professional credibility, or maintain professional integrity. The criminal profiling community must begin to communicate and agree upon standards (p xxx).
With introductory thoughts such as these, one might think that Turvey would then embark on a balanced description and assessment of the various approaches to profiling which are currently in use, noting the strengths and weaknesses of each: not likely. The book is primarily about Turvey’s own preferred method and approach to profiling. At one level, this is fair enough. It means the material is generally based on direct personal experience and insight. The downside, though, is that this is not really the book that the field desperately needs. Despite the favouritism, there are a number of good qualities to the book. The sheer range of topics covered is refreshing. The extensive use of photographs (including crime-scene photographs) helps to potently illustrate the points made and certainly gives the book a distinct advantage over rival publications. While he tends to avoid highlighting the weaknesses inherent in his own approach to profiling, Turvey does make some useful comments on the weaknesses of re
Data Loading...
