Criminal Shadows: Inside the Mind of the Serial Killer
The Blurb
Every crime casts a unique shadow that may be interpreted to lead the police to the criminal responsible. This book looks at offender profiling that helps the police to identify and track individual criminals by the nature of their crime.
About David Canter
Professor of Psychology, university of Huddersfield. David Victor Canter (born 5 January 1944) is a psychologist. He began his career as an architectural psychologist studying the interactions between people and buildings, publishing and providing consultancy on the designs of offices, schools, prisons, housing and other building forms as well as exploring how people made sense of the large scale environment, notably cities. He set up the Journal of Environmental Psychology in 1980. His work in architecture led to studies of human reactions in fires and other emergencies. He pioneered Investigative Psychology in Britain. He helped police in 1985 on the Railway Rapist case. He was the Professor of Psychology at the University of Surrey for ten years, where he developed Investigative Psychology described in detail in Investigative Psychology: Offender Profiling and the Analysis of Criminal Action and a course curriculum. He was Director of the Centre For Investigative Psychology which is based at the University of Liverpool. Since 2009 he has been at the University of Huddersfield. At Liverpool University Canter developed the MSc programme in Investigative Psychology which he directed until 2007. He no longer directs this programme which has consequently changed to reflect the wider arena of Forensic Psychology and a more balanced view of the field. He is the founder and director of the International Academy for Investigative Psychology, a professional academy for researchers seeking to apply social science to investigative and legal processes.
My Review
Just as contact with one human to another has been proven to always leave a physical trace, such as fibres, bodily fluids, fingerprints, and DNA, has been invaluable in detecting crime through forensic pathology, Professor David Canter demonstrates how criminals leave traces if the behaviour of the crime is interpreted and compared to other crimes that may be linked to the same offender. It's a fascinating and logical look at the value of criminal profiling, which also provides an insight into how and why someone may choose to commit unspeakable crimes such as rape and murder.​
