Criminal Psychology in Action

David Canter, Emeritus Professor at The University of Liverpool is highly regarded internationally for his research and many publications in Forensic Psychology. He created the field of Investigative Psychology and earlier developed Environmental Psychology. He has supervised research projects for over half a century, at every level from schools to PhDs, as well as large-scale studies for government departments, industry, and research councils.

“I am very happy to recommend this book, which contains detailed practical advice about how to carry out research projects in criminal psychology. It should appeal particularly to forensic psychology and criminology students, but everyone who is interested in criminal behaviour will derive useful information from it.”David Farrington, Cambridge University, UK“David Canter reveals his experience as a seasoned, practicing social scientist by embracing ‘the value of doing science, rather than just reading about it’. The ten fascinating projects in this book encapsulate the lifeblood of crime psychology.”Benjamin Baughman, Gannon University, USA“David Canter’s expertise shines through this book. A good deal of the material – notably the projects on forgery, fraud, and geographical profiling – will, I’m sure, interest crime writers and all those interested in true crime, and perhaps surprise them.” Martin Edwards, Crime writer, former Chair of the Crime Writers Association “This book is great! It poses some interesting and complex ideas while being easy to understand.”Rosie Jacobs, Sixth Form (High School) student, UK“This book is easy to read and provides a lot of useful and easy to understand details of how to carry out projects and make sense of the results. These are things that I had to learn over a period of time, from here and there, that would mostly use maths jargon. Seeing it all in one place makes it significantly easier.”Miraslava Yaneva, MSc student UK

• Section One – Challenges and Concerns when Studying Crimes and Criminals Section Two – Approaches to Research Section Three – Projects Experiments How to Forge a Signature: Project 1 Detecting Deception: Project 2 Profiling Serial Killers: Project 3 Geographical Offender Profiling: Project 4 Surveys Exploring Crime Seriousness: Project 5 The Seductions of Crime: Project 6 Case Studies How Fraudsters Persuade: Project 7 Justifications for Criminality: Project 8 How to Rob a Bank: Project 9 Role Playing Simulation Exploring Criminal Networks: Aspects of Structure and Communication: Project 10 Section Four – Summary and Conclusions Appendix A: Guidelines for Ethical Psychological Research Appendix B: Very Brief Explanation of Smallest Space Analysis (SSA)