Criminal profiling, also known as offender profiling, is an investigative strategy used by law enforcement agencies to identify likely suspects and link cases that may have been committed by the same perpetrator. It is a technique used to identify the perpetrator of a violent crime by identifying the personality and behavioral characteristics of the offender based upon an analysis of the crime committed. The process generally involves evaluating the criminal act itself, comprehensive evaluation of the specifics of the crime scene(s), comprehensive analysis of the victim, and evaluation of preliminary police reports. Additional steps include evaluation of the medical examiners autopsy protocol, development of a profile with critical offender characteristics, and investigative suggestions predicated on construction of the profile.

Criminal profiling is particularly useful in identifying writers of threatening letters, rapists, arsonists, and sexual murderers. Profilers can serve as intermediaries between organizations in law enforcement, providing detectives with interrogation techniques or a profile of a suspect. Building an accurate criminal profile involves the thorough examination of a crime scene to identify notable psychological traits of the suspect such as psychopathologies, behavioral patterns, or demographic variations.

Critics question the reliability, validity, and utility of criminal profiles generally provided in police investigations. As of 2021, although the practice of offender profiling is widely used, publicized, and researched globally, there is a significant lack of empirical research or evidence to support the validity of psychological profiling in criminal investigations. However, criminal profiling is still a relatively new field with few set boundaries or definitions, and many psychologists, criminologists, and law enforcement officials have begun using psychologys statistical and research methods to bring more science into the art.