# Is criminal profiling basically cold reading? (with a special call out to Ianzin)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-criminal-profiling-basically-cold-reading-with-a-special-call-out-to-ianzin/573670>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [March 6, 2011, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-criminal-profiling-basically-cold-reading-with-a-special-call-out-to-ianzin/573670 "2011-03-06T08:08:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 182

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**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-criminal-profiling-basically-cold-reading-with-a-special-call-out-to-ianzin/573670/182 "2011-03-09T18:04:45Z")

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> [@Airport Security Checks](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airport-security-checks/4442/25):
>
> Profiling is an investigative tool that narrows down the pool of suspects in some way.

Cite that it ever actually does this in a statistically reliable way?

> [@](#):
>
> If you mean that profiling identified a single suspect and produced the evidence to convict, then I agree with you: profiling never solved a single crime.

Ok.

> [@](#):
>
> But when I say “Profiling helps to solve crimes,” I mean that the use of the technique helpfully narrows the pool of suspects in some way.

There is no scientific basis for this assumption, and no data to show that this works reliably. At best, you have some confirmation bias from time to time, but since profiling can’t truly rule anything out, it’s has no investigative utility.

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