Referring to the John Duffy "Railway Rapist" case to illustrate, discuss the strengths and limitations of offender profiling.

... Cassi Axon Referring to the John Duffy "Railway Rapist" case to illustrate, discuss the strengths and limitations of offender profiling. 'Offender profiling' is a general term that has no accepted definition and varies in its use between the USA and the UK. It is based on three strands of expertise: statistical analysis of crime data, behavioural science, and detective expertise. Psychological profiling was in fact used in the Second World War to profile enemy leaders to see if they had weaknesses that could be exploited - for example, William Langer's profile of Hitler and his accurate prediction of suicide after defeat (Langer, 1972). Traditionally police collected hard evidence from the scene of a crime, such as blood, saliva and semen. Other less concrete indicators might be ignored, such as the choice of victim, what was said or not said, the location and the nature of the assault. Psychologists help police to

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