Behavioral analysis has its roots in many overlapping disciplines, including psychology, cognitive science, criminology, and sociology. For the FBI, this practice began in 1972 when a couple of innovative FBI profilers began examining the behaviors exhibited at crime scenes in violent offenses where the motives were unclear. This technique proved useful in identifying the personality and descriptive characteristics of the offender, as well as uncovering a psychological motive from the observed behavior. This method became known as "profiling" or an "unknown offender profile."
What started as a nascent idea blossomed into research that expanded the program beyond unknown offender profiles to utilize identified offender personality characteristics for interviewing, prosecution, and media strategies to achieve desired outcomes for the requesting agency. The process of conducting behavioral analysis in these cases was termed Criminal Investigative Analysis (CIA) at the FBI, focusing on examining and understanding human behavior involved in a matter and using that understanding to effect resolution.
This approach represents the marriage of investigative experience, academic training, and research.
Over time, the use of CIA expanded beyond serial murder to encompass other types of offenses, including crimes against children, counterterrorism, threats, white-collar crime, and cyber offenses. It also extended beyond the FBI to other agencies.
