Criminal profiling involves specialists examining evidence from crime scenes such as photos, reports, and witness testimony to develop a profile of the criminal. They look at details of where and how the crime was committed to understand the criminal's behavior. One early step is an APB with details to help police identify suspects, though this often leads to wasting time on innocent people. When evidence is lacking, profilers make educated guesses about the criminal's education, childhood trauma, and location to give police a starting point. Predictive profiling controversially tries to anticipate uncommitted crimes, while racial profiling identifies skin color and race when no other clues exist. In the end, profiling adds some characteristics to the search but is not definitive, relying on chances

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Criminal Profiling Some General Ideas
Some people do not realize that when a serial killer, serial rapist or any other serious
criminal is on the loose a specialist known as a criminal profiler is brought onto the
case to "profile" the criminal. When a profiler is called into the investigation, long hours
of work begin for he/she on the case. Examination of a lot of information is needed to
even remotely start to profile a criminal and get it somewhat right. Tedious exams of
crime scene photos, autopsy reports, police reports and if any victims or eye witnesses
were present during the crime, profilers must interview them and access the reports.
The starting point of profiling a criminal is to examine the behavior of the criminal. For
example: Where does he/she commit the crime? What specifics does the criminal do
while committing the crime? Is there anything he/she leaves behind at the crime
scene?
One of the most basic parts of criminal profiling is an APB (all points bulletin) which is
basically very wide spread when it comes to the person. The APB will be put out by
police in the area and facts such as car color, car make and model, and possibly the
race and hair color or clothes color will accompany the announcement. This leads
police sometimes to arresting a lot of people who have nothing to do with the crime at
hand and wastes a lot of police hours that could be put to use finding the person that
actually committed the crime.
The next stage of criminal profiling is the psychological profile of the criminal and crime
committed. During this phase of criminal profiling begins when there is no physical
evidence present or there is no eye witnesses. When this happens, the profiler takes
what they know about the criminals actions and try to put additional information
together. Profilers will take the state of the crime scene and try to make an educational
guess. Most of these educational guesses include, education level, physical trauma
during his/her childhood, and possibly where they live. Although the educational
guesses are never 100% accurate, if the police have nothing to go on, this at least
gives them somewhere to start looking.

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Predictive profiling is more of a controversial technique. This happens when profilers
attempt to guess what people are more likely to commit a crime that has not happened
yet. This only happens when a profiler gives a certain scenario to a crime and attempts
to guess at what people are most likely to commit the crime that has been played out
in the scenario. Police then take that information and stay on the look-out for those
who fit the description.
Racial profiling is a technique used in most cases when the suspect of the crime is
completely unknown. Profilers attempt to learn the skin color and race of the criminal
or suspect that committed the crime when there are no eyewitnesses or anything else
to give the police an idea of who the person is.
While criminal profiling does add gender, race, or ethnicity to identify a criminal, this is
only a small part of solving a crime. From the facts and figures, police are able to
identify a type of person by gender, age, race, personality, social standing and possibly
any other characteristics involved. This could give a quicker resolution to the case or in
some cases drag the case longer. With criminal profiling it is basically hit and miss,
they take they chances in hoping their so called guesses are accurate and the criminal
is caught before anymore harm is done.