Geographic profiling is a criminal investigative methodology that analyzes the locations of a connected series of crimes to determine the most probable area of offender residence. By incorporating both qualitative and quantitative methods, it assists in understanding spatial behaviour of an offender and focusing the investigation to a smaller area of the community. Typically used in cases of serial murder or rape (but also arson, bombing, robbery, terrorism and other crimes), the technique helps police detectives prioritize information in large-scale major crime investigations that often involve hundreds or thousands of suspects and tips. In addition to determining the offender's most likely area of residence, an understanding of the spatial pattern of a crime series and the characteristics of the crime sites can tell investigators other useful information, such as whether the crime was opportunistic and the degree of offender familiarity with the crime location. This is based on the connection between an offender's behavior and his or her non-criminal life. Geographic profiling is growing in popularity and, combined with offender profiling, can be a helpful tool in the investigation of serial crime. Development While the use of spatial analysis methods in police investigations goes back many years (e.g., detectives gathered around a large city map with pins stuck in it), the formalized process known today as geographic profiling originated out of research conducted at Simon Fraser University's School of Criminology in British Columbia, Canada, in 1989. Geographic profiling model is based on the assumption that offenders are more likely to select their victims and commit a crime which would be centered near their home address. The technique has now spread to several U.S., Canadian, British, and European law enforcement agencies. Originally designed for violent crime investigations, it is increasingly being used on property crime. Through numerous research studies, there has been an increased importance placed on the journeys offenders habitually take to determine the spatial range of criminal activity. These areas become a comfort zone for predatory offenders to commit their crime because of their familiarity. Consequently, criminal acts follow a distance-decay function, such that the further away the regular activity space of an offender is, the less likely that the person will engage in a predatory criminal activity. However, there is also a buffer zone where an offender will avoid committing crimes too close to their homes in the likely event that they will be identified by a neighbour.