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Entry Guidelines

GeoProfile: Affordable and accurate geographic profiling software.

Use the following guidelines to determine if the series is appropriate for analysis:

The series consists of five or more incidents.

This is not an absolute rule, but highly recommended. Each incident reveals a little more about the area the offender frequents during the course of his routine activity. As a result, more incidents reveal more details about the shape and center of this area. A profile should have three incidents at the very minimum.

The target or type of victim is distributed more or less evenly.

Geographic profiling works well for cities and suburban areas where people and buildings are more or less evenly situated across an area. Geographic profiling does not work for rural areas where populations are irregularly clumped together between empty spaces such as fields, mountains or water. Furthermore, the offender’s target must also be evenly distributed throughout the area. Geographic profiling does not work for offenders whose targets are restricted to selected parts of a city.

Examples

  • Geographic profiling would be recommended for a bank robber in a suburban area since satellite branches exist on nearly every corner in most suburbs.
  • Geographic profiling would not be recommended for a serial killer who targets prostitutes since red light districts tend be to limited to one part of a city.
  • Geographic profiling would not be recommended for a burglar targeting homes in a number of small mountain towns since residences would likely clump together in the irregular valleys created by the mountains.

Use the following guidelines for entering a series for analysis:

Enter one location per incident.

Choose the location that is most likely to reveal something of the offender’s routine movements throughout the area.

Example

  • If the incident has an abduction site within the city and a body dump in a remote area, use the abduction site. The offender may have noticed the victim throughout the normal course of his day but had to search for a dump site in an unfamiliar area. As a result, the abduction site reveals the much more about the area the offender operates out of.

If a series occurs in two or more distinct clusters with significant distance between them, enter each cluster as a separate series.

Incidents that form loose clusters across a single city or a few bordering suburban towns can be entered as one series. However, clusters should be entered as separate series if the incidents cover a large area, such as a state or region, or appear to cluster around cities separated by some distance.

Examples

  • A series has incidents clustered around two different cities. The cities are far enough apart that residents from one city rarely visit the other for routine activities such work, errands or recreation. Consequently, the series should be entered as separate profiles.
  • Visual example of a series that should be entered as two separate profiles:Example of a series that should be entered as two separate profiles.
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