Profiling or Guessing- the role of criminal profiling is certainly one in the popular press and media. Television shows such as CSI or Bones bring the task of forensics into the mainstream living room, but these shows tend to focus more on the sexier forms of criminology as opposed to the gray area of forensic psychology. A professional forensic psychologist, though, understands that a typical profile is not meant to be an exact science -- for example, white male, middle age, college educated, frustrated at work, may have had social adjustment issues while an adolescent -- we have just described both a typical serial killer as well as eighty percent of American males born between 1955-1970. Similarly, psychological autopsies, like forensic evaluations tend to be more narrowly focused, interested more in accuracy of events than supposition. For example, often suicides are cases in which a psychological autopsy would be conducted...
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