Welcome

Through the years, I have communicated with many college students who have asked me how to become a criminal profiler. They young people have streamed endless episodes of Criminal Minds, can quote Silence of the Lambs, and know how Ed Gein pronounced his last name. Typically, these students, who have never worked a homicide or rape investigation, want to join the FBI and expect to step immediately into a profiling position upon graduation and are shocked and disappointed when faced with the cold, hard facts; there are not many profiling positions available and profiling candidates need to possess a strong background in violent crime investigation. The time between my college graduation and profiling certification was 25 years. I had to become a sworn member (this means carrying a firearm and having arrest powers) of a law enforcement agency and start at the bottom as a grunt in the trenches.

I will succinctly put the facts in bullet form:

•       First of all, there are more non-FBI profilers than there are FBI profilers. It’s just that Hollywood and Fox News have a love affair with the Feds, so movie screens and the television are inundated with FBI images.

•       With that said, there still are not many criminal profiling positions available so, opportunities are severely limited.

•       You will not go from college graduate to criminal profiler. First, you will have to be hired by a law enforcement agency that has a behavioral assessment unit. This means you have to pass a background check. Then, you will start in a basic sworn position that has nothing to do with profiling.

•       A strong background in violent crime investigation is necessary. Experience is everything. Book learning is not enough.

•       You are a body first; profiling is merely a specialty. This means supervision can use you in other capacities, such as sting operations, traffic control, riot suppression, political inaugural security, etc. It’s a manpower thing.

•       As a profiler, you will not fly around in an aircraft making arrests. In fact, you won’t be making any arrests as a profiler, period. I flew once in the Governor’s jet to Tennessee to pick up a rapist who had been arrested and extradited to Virginia. My job was to interview him and determine what type of rapist he was.

•       Forget about catching serial killers, that’s pure Hollywood. During my 24+ years as a profiler, I was involved in about 6 serial murder investigations. There just aren’t a lot of them out there. Enhanced forensic detection, better trained investigators, and improved cooperation between agencies have all helped to stop potential serial killers early in their careers before they could increase their body count. Most of my cases involved single events with one or two homicides.  

•       There are other just as satisfying positions in law enforcement, such as a homicide investigator or crime analyst. Leave your options open.

Early in my career when I was a violent crime investigator, I volunteered for as many relevant training courses as possible. I became a crime scene technician, a bloodstain pattern analyst, a statement analyst, a crisis negotiator, a fire investigator, and a bomb technician.

My many specialties covering a large jurisdiction enabled me to experience a variety of interesting events. In future posts, I will share my journey into the bloody brutality of humans. This website was devised to alert students about my 5-day training. My 5-day training emphasizes the importance of melding together investigative knowledge and crime scene behaviors with logical thinking. It has been created for people associated with violent crime investigation and is not available to the general public. The purpose is not to glorify violence but to emphasize learning points gleaned from criminal investigations.