Geographical profiling obscene phone calls—a case study

Abstract

AbstractStudies on geographical profiling have typically focused on crimes with physical crime sites. This study focused on crimes with no physical crimes sites (i.e. no physical contact occurred between the victim and the offender). A single offender made obscene phone calls to 86 children during the years 1999–2000 in the south of Sweden. The locations in which obscene phone calls were received were analysed in a geographical profiling system (Dragnet) to see whether it could provide a map that showed the most likely area the offender would reside in. The purpose of this study was to explore whether geographical software such as Dragnet can be used by investigators of crimes with no physical crime locations. The result showed that the offender in this case had his home close to the region assigned the highest probability of containing home or base, which indicates that Dragnet can provide maps that can narrow down the search areas for the police in cases without physical crime locations. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.