In the criminal justice system there appears to have been a growing demand for professionals in the field of human behavior who can assist law enforcement in solving cases. Law enforcement often enlists the help of psychologists, criminologists, and other experts who specialize in human behavior when investigating a criminal case. Offender profiling is based on the belief that it is possible to identify the characteristics of an offender by examining the characteristics of their crimes. According to Ainsworth (2001, p.7) “profiling generally refers to the process of using all available information about a crime, a crime scene and a victim in order to compose a profile of the (yet) unknown perpetrator”. In this essay we will initially examine how criminal profiling works, then critically discuss this technique and identify advantages and disadvantages in its use. First, it is necessary to explain criminal profiling and its process. Profiling has been used by many countries such as Sweden, Finland, Germany, Canada and the Netherlands (Clark, 2002) as well as the United Kingdom, as from 1981 to 1994 29 profilers provided support 242 times in cases. Although used more frequently today, it can be traced back in the social sciences, to the 1870s, with the work of Cesare Lambroso (Keppel, 2006) with his theory of anthropological criminology which essentially stated that criminality was genetically inherited and that someone born on criminal could be identified by defects in physical appearance. One of the first high-profile cases of profiling was Scotland Yard's attempt to discover the identity of Jack the Ripper. Dr Thomas Bond, who was one of the most famous doctors of the Victorian era... middle of paper... wrong in at least some respects, the police will soon lose faith in their worth. Furthermore, severe criminal profiling may have implications towards certain groups in society as they will be labeled by law enforcement agencies such as the police. In conclusion, it appears that offender profiling has taken on a life of its own, as it is particularly popular in the media, through shows involving police investigations. It has moved considerably since we measured the size of the heads. It is a discipline that has yet to be proven and lacks academic basis and scientific support, but in some cases it has proven useful, especially when there is no evidence and one can only work with psychological indications. However from the information provided above he concluded that we must approach criminal profiling with caution as it is not always as successful as hoped.