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Rating: 
- Disappointing
J.P above talks of Canter's book as a pretentious and disappointing read, and unfortunately, I must agree. His review sums up many of the thoughts I held as I read through the book twice in order to ingest the meaning and messages he was given.
I wrote about the book for a University Book Review, and wrote nearly 1500 words on how disappointed I was not to learn more about what seems a thoroughly interesting topic, other than the basics that really, I already knew or had guessed of even from fictional tv programmes. This shouldn't have been the case.
Although it was in some ways fascinating to read of his real life cases (not in to much detail) and to get an insight into a highly regarded gentleman's view on other forms of profiling, this was where the enjoyment ended.
My advice is to purchase one of Canter's other book, perhaps 'Mapping Murders' which seems a much more engaging read.
Rating:
- Overly pretentious and disappointing.
Far from the title suggests, no great "secrets" of geographical profiling are revealed in this book.
The first half consists mainly of Canter drawing up conclusions on the thought processes of the two killers Fred West and Jack the Ripper from their respective diarys/memoirs. For the former, the summary is basically that the home was a significant physical and symbolical structure in the organization of his domain of crime.
And for the latter, many pages are expended on pure speculation that leads mainly to nowhere. A total waste of space.
If Canter knew anything of the basics of criminal profiling he may have also considered that the Ripper was a characteristic "Disorganized" killer, who would most likely have been semi-literate in his day, and not keep an organized journal of his crimes with such a high level of articulacy.
It is highly frustrating that despite downplaying the significance of criminal profiling, much of the book is spent musing on different stories that draw upon the importance of understanding the mind of the killers. The author uses pseudo-intelligent ramblings on the nature of human behaviour rather than actual Geological profiling as a main narrative. Travelling habits are highlighted to create the illusion that geography is the main theme. The convenience of the environment is an obvious factor even to us non law-enforcement folk, that if it were not for the ocassional mention of software programs, one would think that nothing of value is being offered here.
One particular embarassing quote:
"...genes are largely irrelevant to what makes us human" reminds us that Canter is no Geneticist and the specialization of his area of expertise limits his counsel in many areas of criminal apprehension and otherwise.
At the same time when announcing the absolute accuracy of his geographical profiling (which he uses synonymously with the word 'profiling'), he does not hesitate to demean other alterative efforts such as the HOLMES database system, FBI ViCAP and the ISU (which has proved to be very accurate statistically) and even police forces themselves.
Also worth noting is that while Canter points out the problem of Linkage-Blindness, he seems to be ignorant of other peoples studies; for example, at one point he admits to not knowing the meaning of the word "Power-Reassurance Rapist", and dismisses it as unapplicable to real crimes. Yet he only describes two or three cases in which his method has actually worked.
Either he is overemphasising the greatness of his system's abilities, or just plain arrogant.
The biggest diclosure of the book has been the obvious observation that killers usually stay close to home or "base" during the time of commiting serial crimes. A central area in between the crime scenes are usually where he resides. Little is said of killers who travel, and killers who do not live in the areas where his crimes are commited.
Unlike good profilers who admit that police work is paramount to a sucessful investigation, Canter makes Geographical Profiling seem like the be all and end all of crime solving.
Rating: - Like a padded-out article with little to no real analysis
I picked this up second hand in Thailand while travelling for a few months. With a passing interest in real life crime, mainly the detective work involved, I bought it. My wife (a university lecturer herself) read it first and said it was very short on actual analysis and overall it was very disappointing. Since she has little interest in this sort of thing, I put her review down to that. Unfortunately she was quite right - this is an unnecessarily long, disjointed, poorly written and erratic book which will be of little interest to most people with an interest in criminology etc.
Amazingly, geographic profiling is hardly dealt with in terms of applying it to the actual murders/kidnappings/rapes reviewed. On most occasions Canter tells us about the case at hand, throws in a few details about a similar case and then concludes by saying (usually in one line), that geographic profiling could have helped. How? Why? What is he talking about? Who knows?
The writing style is very hard work too. For instance, the chapter on Black starts by telling us about the crimes and the criminal involved. Then he takes a detour onto some other unrelated topic, before starting another chapter and repeating almost word-for-word the opening gambit. This happens throughout - the case being "analysed" (and I use that word loosely) is suddenly abandoned for some other issue, and it's never anything related to geographical profiling. It's often interesting I will admit, eg the relevance of bodily mutilation, psychological profiling, the characteristics of criminals etc, but that is not what the book professes to be about. A whole chapter is devoted to how Jill Dando's fame obscured the polic investigation - interesting though that might be, isn't it in the wrong book?
Furthermore, the level of knowledge Canter has about each case is also wildly divergent. The best chapter is probably the one dealing with the NZ rapist - he was obviously privy to a lot of information about the case. But other cases are explained with scant facts almost as if the reader should know all the background.
One last peeve - why all the chapters? The NZ case is broken into 2 chapters but there is no reason for this whatsoever. The second chapter is no different in style or tone to the first - it could all have been one chapter. The West murders get at least 3 chapters, most of which deal with Fred's diary (no geographic profiling there). What was wrong with a single chapter on this one case? It's a small niggle but it just adds to the frustration reading the book.
The book is not all bad of course - some of the chapters are enlightening, but almost as if by accident. The issue of geographic profiling is barely addressed in practice and what I did learn - that the first rape/attack is often very close to the offender's home as it is impulsive and that someone like Sutcliffe or Black use their transport to move around and commit crimes - seem like commonsense, not science, to me.
Rating:
- Putting crime in its place.
An intriguing book, translating the more widely known (or mythologised) role of the profiler into a consideration of the effects geography and place have on crime. Most burglars, we learn, rarely travel more than a short distance from their own homes.
Canter offers a stimulating insight into the way we all perceive the environment in which we live. There are places in which we feel safe, places in which we feel decidedly out of place. The same is true for anyone intent on the commission of a crime. You want to be somewhere you won't be noticed, somewhere you feel comfortable, somewhere you know your way around.
Canter goes a long way towards demystifying crime - criminals are not supermen, they are not master minds, nor are they so evil as to be instantly recognised. The vast majority of criminals (and I speak as a Probation Officer) are very ordinary individuals indeed. Profiling of criminals need not only apply to headline crimes - it can apply to the ordinary crimes committed by ordinary offenders, and can therefore offer clues to prevention, detection, and correction or rehabilitation.
Canter compares and contrasts classic failures in investigation - the false assumptions made about the Washington Sniper, the failure to catch Jill Dando's killer, the way Fred West created a 'normal' world for himself in his prison journals in contrast to the chaotic, murderous one in which he lived.
Canter had considerable success helping profile and catch the 'Railway Rapist' in England. He highlights the manner in which a criminal will begin with unplanned, opportunistic crimes, slowly elaborating upon his/her successes, becoming more sophisticated if not caught, learning how to plan and visualise, etc. The early crime is committed close to home or close to somewhere familiar to the offender; thereafter, it can be planned further and further from home.
A fascinating read, not always convincing - as when he claims to have identified Jack the Ripper - but with a vast amount of stimulating argument and analysis. An invaluable book for any serving police officer, for anyone involved in the crime and criminology field, or for crime writers.
Rating: - Dated material
While David Canter pulls together various pieces of research and information on the use of geography in criminal investigations, there is little new here that hasn't been said before, elsewhere.
- DisappointingJ.P above talks of Canter's book as a pretentious and disappointing read, and unfortunately, I must agree. His review sums up many of the thoughts I held as I read through the book twice in order to ingest the meaning and messages he was given.
I wrote about the book for a University Book Review, and wrote nearly 1500 words on how disappointed I was not to learn more about what seems a thoroughly interesting topic, other than the basics that really, I already knew or had guessed of even from fictional tv programmes. This shouldn't have been the case.
Although it was in some ways fascinating to read of his real life cases (not in to much detail) and to get an insight into a highly regarded gentleman's view on other forms of profiling, this was where the enjoyment ended.
My advice is to purchase one of Canter's other book, perhaps 'Mapping Murders' which seems a much more engaging read.
Rating:
- Overly pretentious and disappointing.Far from the title suggests, no great "secrets" of geographical profiling are revealed in this book.
The first half consists mainly of Canter drawing up conclusions on the thought processes of the two killers Fred West and Jack the Ripper from their respective diarys/memoirs. For the former, the summary is basically that the home was a significant physical and symbolical structure in the organization of his domain of crime.
And for the latter, many pages are expended on pure speculation that leads mainly to nowhere. A total waste of space.
If Canter knew anything of the basics of criminal profiling he may have also considered that the Ripper was a characteristic "Disorganized" killer, who would most likely have been semi-literate in his day, and not keep an organized journal of his crimes with such a high level of articulacy.
It is highly frustrating that despite downplaying the significance of criminal profiling, much of the book is spent musing on different stories that draw upon the importance of understanding the mind of the killers. The author uses pseudo-intelligent ramblings on the nature of human behaviour rather than actual Geological profiling as a main narrative. Travelling habits are highlighted to create the illusion that geography is the main theme. The convenience of the environment is an obvious factor even to us non law-enforcement folk, that if it were not for the ocassional mention of software programs, one would think that nothing of value is being offered here.
One particular embarassing quote:
"...genes are largely irrelevant to what makes us human" reminds us that Canter is no Geneticist and the specialization of his area of expertise limits his counsel in many areas of criminal apprehension and otherwise.
At the same time when announcing the absolute accuracy of his geographical profiling (which he uses synonymously with the word 'profiling'), he does not hesitate to demean other alterative efforts such as the HOLMES database system, FBI ViCAP and the ISU (which has proved to be very accurate statistically) and even police forces themselves.
Also worth noting is that while Canter points out the problem of Linkage-Blindness, he seems to be ignorant of other peoples studies; for example, at one point he admits to not knowing the meaning of the word "Power-Reassurance Rapist", and dismisses it as unapplicable to real crimes. Yet he only describes two or three cases in which his method has actually worked.
Either he is overemphasising the greatness of his system's abilities, or just plain arrogant.
The biggest diclosure of the book has been the obvious observation that killers usually stay close to home or "base" during the time of commiting serial crimes. A central area in between the crime scenes are usually where he resides. Little is said of killers who travel, and killers who do not live in the areas where his crimes are commited.
Unlike good profilers who admit that police work is paramount to a sucessful investigation, Canter makes Geographical Profiling seem like the be all and end all of crime solving.
Rating:
- Like a padded-out article with little to no real analysisI picked this up second hand in Thailand while travelling for a few months. With a passing interest in real life crime, mainly the detective work involved, I bought it. My wife (a university lecturer herself) read it first and said it was very short on actual analysis and overall it was very disappointing. Since she has little interest in this sort of thing, I put her review down to that. Unfortunately she was quite right - this is an unnecessarily long, disjointed, poorly written and erratic book which will be of little interest to most people with an interest in criminology etc.
Amazingly, geographic profiling is hardly dealt with in terms of applying it to the actual murders/kidnappings/rapes reviewed. On most occasions Canter tells us about the case at hand, throws in a few details about a similar case and then concludes by saying (usually in one line), that geographic profiling could have helped. How? Why? What is he talking about? Who knows?
The writing style is very hard work too. For instance, the chapter on Black starts by telling us about the crimes and the criminal involved. Then he takes a detour onto some other unrelated topic, before starting another chapter and repeating almost word-for-word the opening gambit. This happens throughout - the case being "analysed" (and I use that word loosely) is suddenly abandoned for some other issue, and it's never anything related to geographical profiling. It's often interesting I will admit, eg the relevance of bodily mutilation, psychological profiling, the characteristics of criminals etc, but that is not what the book professes to be about. A whole chapter is devoted to how Jill Dando's fame obscured the polic investigation - interesting though that might be, isn't it in the wrong book?
Furthermore, the level of knowledge Canter has about each case is also wildly divergent. The best chapter is probably the one dealing with the NZ rapist - he was obviously privy to a lot of information about the case. But other cases are explained with scant facts almost as if the reader should know all the background.
One last peeve - why all the chapters? The NZ case is broken into 2 chapters but there is no reason for this whatsoever. The second chapter is no different in style or tone to the first - it could all have been one chapter. The West murders get at least 3 chapters, most of which deal with Fred's diary (no geographic profiling there). What was wrong with a single chapter on this one case? It's a small niggle but it just adds to the frustration reading the book.
The book is not all bad of course - some of the chapters are enlightening, but almost as if by accident. The issue of geographic profiling is barely addressed in practice and what I did learn - that the first rape/attack is often very close to the offender's home as it is impulsive and that someone like Sutcliffe or Black use their transport to move around and commit crimes - seem like commonsense, not science, to me.
Rating:
- Putting crime in its place.An intriguing book, translating the more widely known (or mythologised) role of the profiler into a consideration of the effects geography and place have on crime. Most burglars, we learn, rarely travel more than a short distance from their own homes.
Canter offers a stimulating insight into the way we all perceive the environment in which we live. There are places in which we feel safe, places in which we feel decidedly out of place. The same is true for anyone intent on the commission of a crime. You want to be somewhere you won't be noticed, somewhere you feel comfortable, somewhere you know your way around.
Canter goes a long way towards demystifying crime - criminals are not supermen, they are not master minds, nor are they so evil as to be instantly recognised. The vast majority of criminals (and I speak as a Probation Officer) are very ordinary individuals indeed. Profiling of criminals need not only apply to headline crimes - it can apply to the ordinary crimes committed by ordinary offenders, and can therefore offer clues to prevention, detection, and correction or rehabilitation.
Canter compares and contrasts classic failures in investigation - the false assumptions made about the Washington Sniper, the failure to catch Jill Dando's killer, the way Fred West created a 'normal' world for himself in his prison journals in contrast to the chaotic, murderous one in which he lived.
Canter had considerable success helping profile and catch the 'Railway Rapist' in England. He highlights the manner in which a criminal will begin with unplanned, opportunistic crimes, slowly elaborating upon his/her successes, becoming more sophisticated if not caught, learning how to plan and visualise, etc. The early crime is committed close to home or close to somewhere familiar to the offender; thereafter, it can be planned further and further from home.
A fascinating read, not always convincing - as when he claims to have identified Jack the Ripper - but with a vast amount of stimulating argument and analysis. An invaluable book for any serving police officer, for anyone involved in the crime and criminology field, or for crime writers.
Rating:
- Dated materialWhile David Canter pulls together various pieces of research and information on the use of geography in criminal investigations, there is little new here that hasn't been said before, elsewhere.
