144

Article

Recent Developments in Geographic

Profiling
D. Kim Rossmo

Abstract This article outlines operational developments in geographic profiling in the last decade, focusing on

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police use and training and the exploration of new applications. A brief summary of environmental criminology, the
theoretical foundation of geographic profiling, is first provided. The establishment of the geographic profiling analysis
training program for property crime is then discussed. This is followed by a review of new applications of the
methodology in border security, military counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and geo-historical analysis.
Research on the use of geographic profiling in biology, zoology, and epidemiology is next discussed. Finally, potential
future developments are examined.

Introduction involve hundreds, even thousands of suspects.

Geographic profiling is a criminal investigative
methodology that analyses the locations of a con-
nected series of crime to determine the most prob-
able area of offender residence (Rossmo, 2000). Its
primary purpose is to help police manage informa-
tion through suspect prioritization. The technique
has now expanded to a number of other disciplines
as the ability to determine the geographic origin of a
series of events has utility in fields other than crim-
inal investigation.
A profile cannot prove an offender’s guilt—only
a witness, confession, or physical evidence can do
that (Klockars and Mastrofski, 1991). However,
police detectives must find the offender before
they can prove his or her guilt. The role of a geo-
graphic profile is to help prioritize suspects
identified in the ‘finding’ stage of a criminal inves-
tigation. It is not unusual for serial crime cases to
Given the ubiquity of address-based information
in police files and public records, geographic profil-
ing is a useful tool in the investigation of serial
crime.
Environmental criminology
Geographic profiling is based on the ideas and prin-
ciples of environmental criminology. The main
interest of traditional criminology has been the of-
fender, a focus which typically has ignored the
crime setting, the ‘where and when’ of the criminal
act. While there has been some interest in how
geography influences crime, including the pioneer-
ing cartographic studies of Guerry and Quetelet
and the ecological research of the Chicago School,
it was not until the development of environmental
criminology, and its shift from offender to criminal


D. Kim Rossmo, Department of Criminal Justice, Texas State University. Email: krossmo@txstate.edu

Advance Access publication: 9 January 2012

Policing, Volume 6, Number 2, pp. 144–150
doi:10.1093/police/par055
ß The Authors 2012. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
For permissions please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com
Recent Developments in Geographic Profiling
event, that a full appreciation of the importance of
place was realized.
Environmental criminology is interested in the
interactions between people and their surround-
ings, and views crime as the product of offenders
and their setting (Brantingham and Brantingham,
1981, 1984). Research in this field has taken a multi-
disciplinary approach—involving operational, per-
ceptual, behavioural, social, psychological, legal,
cultural, and geographic perspectives—to examin-
ing the micro, meso, and macrolevels of crime.
The main environmental criminology theories
underlying geographic profiling—crime pattern
(Brantingham and Brantingham, 1993), routine ac-
tivity (Felson, 2002), and rational choice (Clarke
and Felson, 1993)—provide a basis for understand-
ing the target patterns and hunting behaviour of
criminal predators through the microlevel dimen-
sions of offender, victim, crime, and environment.
By concentrating on the spatial and temporal
patterns of crime, environmental criminologists
are able to produce research with near-term prac-
tical utility. Not only are space and time easily mea-
sured and quantified, but they also define
parameters within which police, urban planners,
and crime prevention practitioners operate. This
is the domain of geographic profiling, crime pre-
vention through environmental design (CPTED),
problem-oriented policing, situational crime pre-
vention, and much of the work of crime scientists
at the Jill Dando Institute, University College
London.
The geographic profiling analysis
training program for property
crime
Geographic profiling has turned out to be a surpris-
ingly robust and versatile methodology. Originally
developed for analyzing serial murder cases, it was
soon applied to rape, sexual assault, arson, robbery,
and bombing investigations. In recent years, the
technique has also been used on several other
types of crimes, including kidnapping, burglary,
Article Policing 145
auto theft, fraud, vandalism, and graffiti. Some of
the most interesting applications have been of
non-criminal spatial data, either in support of a
police investigation or for research purposes: pay-
phones in a murder case, cellular telephone switch
towers in kidnapping cases, store purchases of
bomb components, credit card purchases or bank
ATM withdrawals in rape cases, postcards and
notes left on the street in sedition cases, even the
routine activities of students.
In the late 1990s, the National Law Enforcement
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and Corrections Technology Center-Southeast
Region (NLECTC-SE) wanted to expand the use
of geographic profiling to property crime investi-
gations (Rossmo and Velarde, 2008). Working
with the Vancouver Police Department, the
NLECTC-SE developed a 2-week program for
crime analysts and detectives as part of a technology
demonstration program first introduced in 2001
(Laverty and MacLaren, 2002). Called Geographic
Profiling Analysis (GPA), the 2-week course
included classroom lectures and exercises, and
field evaluation and mentorship. The program
was redesigned by Texas State University in 2004.
GPA training is now available through various uni-
versities and police agencies internationally, includ-
ing the Jill Dando Institute in London.
The GPA curriculum consists of two 1-week
courses.
 Week One, The Geography of Crime, is an
overview of environmental criminology, the
geography of crime, offence linkage, spatial–
temporal crime patterns, and geographic pro-
filing for property crime. The primary purpose
of this week is to familiarize students with the-
oretical concepts, the nature of crime patterns,
and the challenges of serial crime investigation.
The content is designed to be a general over-
view of everything a police investigator or
crime analyst should know about environ-
mental criminology.
 Week Two, Rigel Analyst, covers the use of
the software, preparing a geographic profile,
146 Policing Article
casework exercises, suggested strategies, and
report preparation. The primary purpose
of this week is to introduce students to the
experience and mechanics of preparing geo-
graphic profiles for property crime. The con-
tent is specifically designed for individuals who
will be involved in geographic profiling duties.
Police officers and crime analysts are usually on
their own after completing a training course.
Unfortunately, classroom exercises can never fully
prepare students for all possible operational reali-
ties. The GPA course addresses this problem by
providing ongoing instructor mentorship, certifica-
tion based on actual police agency casework, and a
network of geographic profiling analysts to facili-
tate information sharing and case consultation.
In turn, the feedback received regarding field
experiences and operational issues can then be
incorporated into future course content. Not sur-
prisingly, given the relative frequency of property to
violent crime, the demand for GPA training is
the fastest growing area of geographic profiling.
Over 600 people, representing 264 agencies from
14 countries, including Australia, Canada,
England, Korea, The Netherlands, South Africa,
Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, and the
USA, have now been trained in geographic profiling
analysis.
New applications
Geographic profiling has found new applications in
the military, intelligence, and homeland security
fields, as well as in historic cold case investigations.
As has been observed with criminal offenders, in-
surgents, terrorists, and enemy combatants often
exhibit consistent patterns of spatial behaviour.
The specific nature of their actions and the proper
understanding of a geographic profile within the
context of their operations, however, may require
domain-specific interpretations. Consequently, it is
important to work with subject matter experts and
D. K. Rossmo
field practitioners when conducting studies on new
applications.
Border security
While geographic profiling is usually thought of as
a method for determining the most likely location
of an offender’s home or base of operations, it can
also be used to analyse movements through con-
stricted areas along international borders. Border
control is a crucial component of national security;
however, the length of land borders and coastlines
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in many countries poses significant security chal-
lenges. Illegal workers, drug couriers, foreign ter-
rorists, smugglers, fugitives, and other criminals
benefit from the porous nature of most national
boundaries. Analysing 254,717 illegal entry events,
Rossmo et al. (2008) identified physical and human
geographic features that influenced the probability
of illegal crossings through the Del Rio sector of the
Texas–Mexico border. Knowledge of the geograph-
ic patterns of illegal migration can help border
patrol agencies optimize resource allocation strate-
gies and anticipate offender reactions to enforce-
ment efforts.
Military counterinsurgency
Research on insurgency attacks in Iraq has identi-
fied underlying spatial and temporal patterns
(Johnson and Braithwaite, 2009; Townsley et al.,
2008). These incidents are quasi-criminal in
nature and traditional military responses are not
appropriate because of the civilian nature of
the surrounding population. They therefore
require intelligence analysis and an investigative
response. Geographic profiling is now being used
by coalition forces to help analysts determine the
most probable locations of enemy bases (Brown
et al., 2005). For example, urban and countryside
insurgency problems in Iraq and Afghanistan in-
clude attacks from improvised explosive devices
(IEDs), vehicle bombs, land mines, rocket-
propelled grenades (RPGs), mortars, and snipers.
Insurgents typically obtain their heavier armaments
and munitions from supply centres—homes,
Recent Developments in Geographic Profiling
mosques, warehouses, and various other buildings.
These centres serve as the equivalent of bases and
can be geographically profiled, using the locations
of the attacks as the equivalent of crime sites.
Geographic profiling provides the military a
semi-automated means to predict insurgents’
behaviour and actions. Further, it offers an
increased level of analysis through a mathematical
calculation that predicts insurgent activity areas
and bases of operation. This capability can assist
deployed military forces by focusing intelligence
collection efforts and directing arms resources to
insurgent bases in order to disrupt future attacks
(Grau, 2004). Other potential military applications
that are being researched include battlefield ana-
lysis, piracy interdiction, optimal search strategies
for missing sea vessels, and war crime investigation.
Counterterrorism
Terrorism is a covert threat, and important pat-
terns can be lost in the large volume of data col-
lected by counterterrorism and intelligence
agencies. Geographic prioritization models can be
used to prioritize suspects, tips, and leads. While it
has seemed to some that terrorists, with trans-
national structures and decentralized networks,
lack a geographic structure, it turns out this is not
the case. It is possible to discover significant pat-
terns in terrorist activity by analyzing geospatial
intelligence on terrorist incidents, according to
the Director of National Intelligence Open Source
Center (Federation of American Scientists, 2009).
Many minor terrorist actions are ordinary crimes,
such as robbery, theft, and credit card fraud (Jordan
and Horsburgh, 2005). Even major terrorist attacks,
often chose for symbolism (Drake, 1998), require
the establishment of terrorist cells in the area of
operation. In both cases, a geographic relationship
exists, whether it is the target determining the lo-
cations of the terrorist cell sites, or the terrorist cell
sites determining the location of the target.
Using environmental criminology theories and
geographic profiling concepts, Rossmo and
Harries (2011) analysed the geospatial patterns of
Article Policing 147
urban terrorist cells in Turkey. They collected spa-
tial data on 38 terrorism cases involving 206 target
sites and 215 cell sites from police investigation
files, mapped these locations, and measured the
distances from cell sites to incident sites and the
distances between cell sites. The resulting probabil-
ity distributions provide the basis for the devel-
opment of a geospatial model for intelligence
management.
Geo-historical analysis
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Geographic profiles have now been prepared for a
number of unsolved historical crimes, including
Jack the Ripper, 1888 (Rossmo, 2000), the Austin
Axe Murderer, 1884–1885 (Rossmo, 2006), the
Zodiac Killer, 1968–1969, and the Sacramento
East Area Rapist, 1976–1986 (Crompton, 2010).
Such cases involve substantial historic research be-
yond the usual investigative analysis. In addition
to the challenges of obtaining old police files and ac-
curate crime information, maps and demographic
information from the relevant time periods have to
be located, timelines for key places such as schools
or military bases investigated, and an understand-
ing of existing social conditions obtained. For
example, the housing conditions of urban blacks
in post-Civil War Texas in the Austin Axe
Murderer case, the poverty of Whitechapel in the
Jack the Ripper case, and the 1960s culture of
California in the Zodiac case are all important
geo-historic factors. The development of these
methods inform more than academic curiosity.
With advancements in DNA technology, some of
the more recent of these historical cases are now
being actively re-investigated using geoprofiling as
part of the suspect prioritization process.
Biology, zoology, and
epidemiology
The original development of geographic profiling
was informed by animal foraging models and point
pattern analysis, the latter first developed to study
148 Policing Article
patterns of plant locations. In an interesting turn-
about, biologists and zoologists are now applying
geographic profiling to research on foraging
models, animal predation, and disease spread.
Le Comber et al. (2006) used geographic profil-
ing models to quantitatively describe foraging pat-
terns of two sympatric colonies of pipistrelle bats in
Scotland. They found the variables of models fitted
to known roost locations could be used to differen-
tiate foraging patterns between the two species.
A similar study, conducted in the laboratory at
Queen Mary College, University of London, com-
bined computer model simulations and experi-
mental observation of foraging bumblebees to
demonstrate how geographic profiling can be
used to discriminate spatial search patterns result-
ing from varying flower densities and different fora-
ging algorithms (Raine et al., 2009).
Martin et al. (2009) applied geographic profiling
to location data from 340 predatory interactions
between white sharks and Cape fur seals near Seal
Island in False Bay, South Africa, to investigate spa-
tial patterns of shark attack and search behaviour.
They found sharks appear to have a well-defined
search base and their spatial patterns of predation
were non-random. Interestingly, this location was
not where seal predation risk was highest; instead,
it most likely represents an optimal balance among
prey detection, capture rates, and competition.
Smaller sharks had more dispersed prey search pat-
terns and lower predatory success rates than larger
sharks, suggesting either a refinement of hunting
strategies with experience or competitive exclusion
of smaller sharks from the best hunting areas.
Geographic profiling has also been used in epi-
demiology research to locate origins of infectious
disease. Le Comber et al. (2011) examined the sites
of 321 cholera deaths from the 1854 outbreak in
Soho, London. The Broad Street pump, the
source of the contamination, ranked first among
13 local water pumps, and was situated in the top
0.2% of the geoprofile. They also analysed 139
reported malaria cases in Cairo, Egypt, and
ranked 59 mosquitogenic local water sources, 7 of
D. K. Rossmo
which tested positive for the vector Anopheles ser-
gentii. Six of these sites were ranked in the top six
positions, all in the top 2% of the geoprofile. They
conclude geographic profiling could play a useful
role in integrated control strategies relating to a
wide variety of infectious diseases (see, also,
Buscema et al., 2009).
Finally, geographic profiling has been used to
identify source populations of invasive species
from their current locations (Stevenson et al.,
in press). The technique was tested on historical
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data from the Biological Records Centre for 53 in-
vasive species in Great Britain, ranging from marine
invertebrates to woody trees, in a wide variety of
habitats. The accuracy of the results indicates geo-
graphic profiling might be used to help target con-
trol measures.
Biological applications of geographic profiling
could ultimately prove to have benefits for police
agencies and homeland security. Research on locat-
ing sources of epidemics or invasive species using
geoprofiling models may eventually be translated
into analytic methods for identifying the origin of
bioterrorism attacks. This capability is important
for both public safety and police investigative
functions.
Future developments
There are three promising areas of research that
may lead to future improvements in geographic
profiling and crime detection. The first is the in-
corporation of areal analysis into the point pattern
analysis employed in geographic profiling. Johnson
(1999) explored the relationship between the
geo-demographic characteristics of the location
where a stranger rapist lived and where he offended.
This work was later expanded upon by incorporat-
ing different geo-demographic systems and dis-
tance analyses (Rossmo et al., 2004). Levine and
Block (2011) are developing a Bayesian approach
that integrates historic offender residence data
with journey-to-crime estimations. Unfortunately,
Recent Developments in Geographic Profiling
Bayesian models have a major limitation; while
potentially useful for prioritizing geographic
areas, they cannot be used to prioritize suspects.
(Doing so creates a tautology because offender resi-
dences have already been used to calibrate the
model.)
Geographic profiling may also have a role to play
in prioritizing searches for buried pre-historic sites
based on the locations of recovered artefacts. This
approach could be enhanced by combining the
point pattern analysis of geoprofiling with the
area-based analysis of archaeological predictive
modelling (APM), which uses correlations between
archaeological sites and the physical environment
in order to focus exploration efforts. It has also been
suggested that geoprofiling could be used to analyse
the spread of dolmens and megalithic monuments.
The second research area involves attempts to
better understand the journey to crime. While the
connection between where offenders live and where
they offend informs the core functioning of geopro-
filing models, little is known of the spatial dynamics
of crime trips beyond the typical distance between
an offender’s home and his or her crime sites. In an
effort to better understand the journey to crime,
Rossmo et al. (2011) mapped and analyzed the spa-
tial–temporal patterns of a group of reoffending
parolees on an electronic monitoring and global
positioning system program. These maps display
accurate depictions of crime trips and provide reli-
able data for understanding the spatial activity pat-
terns of criminals. Bernasco (2010) studied the
influence of offender residential history on crime
geography. He found that the location of a past
residence still significantly influenced where a cri-
minal offended, provided the move was recent and
the criminal had lived in the past residence for some
time. Summers et al. (2010) have explored the use
of maps in interviews of convicted property offend-
ers to better understand their activity spaces and
journeys to crime.
The third research area is in the integration of
forensic and behavioural science. While there are a
number of possibilities, one of the most promising
Article Policing 149
to date has been the use of geospatial analyses to
refine the calculation of familial DNA probabilities.
Conclusion
Analysing and understanding crime patterns
has significant potential for improved policing,
criminal investigation, crime prevention, and
public safety. The expansion of geographic profil-
ing demonstrates the reach and power of the envir-
onmental criminology approach. It also illustrates
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the value of crime science, with its multidisciplinary
and scientific focus on reducing crime through new
techniques of prevention and detection.
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