It may be true, but how’s it helping? UK police detectives’ views of the operational usefulness of offender profiling

This study utilised qualitative semi-structured interviews with 11 detectives from a single UK police force, in an attempt to understand if, how, and why offender profiling can be operationally useful to police officers. Although some positive opinions were expressed, overall this study found the detectives to be dissatisfied customers of the service of offender profilers. Common complaints included profiles widening the field of investigation to unmanageable proportions in terms of suspects and cases, not telling police anything that they did not already know, profilers breaching the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, and advice being simply common sense or too general. Police also reported feeling pressurised into continued use, despite their scepticism.