Criminal profiling in a terrorism context

Abstract

This chapter addresses the issue of the relevance of the offender/criminal profiling paradigm to terrorists. There are three main stumbling blocks inherent in the profiling paradigm that make transferring it to terrorists neither simple nor necessarily helpful and could in fact be dangerously misleading. It is argued that it is more fruitful to shift the focus of the profiling paradigm by engaging in profiling the process of terrorism rather than the person. A multi-context model is developed to show how various factors operating at different but intermeshing contexts can come together to profile the terrorism process. Data from arrested Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist network members in Southeast Asia were used to demonstrate the utility of this multi-context model of systemic terrorism. © 2007 Humana Press.