Anyone that has ever watched a movie or television show about a serial killer is probably familiar with behavioral analysis. The discipline was championed by the FBI as a means to help identify and capture some of the nation’s most insidious criminals.
Established in 1985, the Behavioral Science Unit, now the Behavioral Analysis Unit, uses case history and research to explore, qualify, and quantify the psychology of criminal perpetrators. Although still criticized to this day for a lack of empirical evidence to its veracity, the FBI’s use of behavioral analysis now constitutes five separate divisions devoted to the nation’s most critical violent crimes.