Letter: Nilsen on television

Sir: When I was asked to act as a consultant on Mike Morley's documentary Murder in Mind, I was told it would be a serious examination of the development of 'offender profiling' since my early work on the 'Railway Murders'. However, as is clear from the perceptive review by Mark Lawson ('Free speech or just cheap?', 27 January), the justifiable concern with giving Nilsen airtime in 'a chat show for psychopaths' has added to public confusion about the nature of such 'profiling'.

Interviews with offenders have played only a small part in the development of profiling research. Indeed, there are important doubts about whether such interviews could ever be central to the scientific study of criminal behaviour. If the programme fostered the view, expressed by Mark Lawson, that profiling consists of 'purely intuitive . . . guesses', then it has set public understanding back considerably.

My own contributions to police investigations are based on extensive research, published in scientific journals. Yet, although Central filmed detailed examples of this work, it was kept out of the documentary in favour of the interviews with violent, remorseless criminals.

There are many conditions under which interviews with offenders could make a valuable contribution to an effective and informative documentary, but I remain unconvinced that Mike Morley's film was one of them.

Sincerely,

DAVID CANTER

Professor of Psychology

Department of Psychology

University of Surrey

Guildford, Surrey

27 January