In a volume that is part of a series on how law enforcement has been influenced by psychological theories and research, experts in fields from investigative psychology to zoology map the range
of offenders' crimes to guide police searches for them. In introducing 15 papers on tracking such spatial patterns, Canter and Youngs (U. of Liverpool) overview the origins and principles of
geographical offender profiling. An early application was the case of the "railway rapist," in which the suspect's residence was deduced from the distribution of his crimes. The volume includes
an analysis of the Jack the Ripper case in such terms, the generality vs. uniqueness debate in criminal behavior, and a talk by Canter (Mapping Murder). Annotation 穢2008 Book News, Inc.,
Portland, OR (booknews.com)
