An IACSP Q&A With Former FBI Profiler John Douglas

John Douglas is a legendary FBI criminal profiler and the author of true crime books. He is considered a pioneer in the field of criminal profiling.

He spent more than twenty-five years researching and profiling America’s most violent and dangerous criminals. After serving in the U.S. Air force, John Douglas joined the FBI in 1970. He served a SWAT team and was a hostage negotiator before he transferred to the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit in 1977. Later he taught hostage negotiation and applied criminal psychology at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia to new FBI Agents, field agents, and police officers from all over the United States.

With former FBI Special Agent Robert K. Ressler and Dr. Ann Burgess, John Douglas conducted a landmark study of predators, published in book form as “Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives,” and “Crime Classification Manual.”

John Douglas assisted police with investigative techniques and proactive strategies in hunting some of the most notorious criminals of our time. He has confronted, interviewed, and studied dozens of serial killers and assassins, including Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan, Richard Speck, John Wayne Gacy, “Son of Sam” David Berkowitz and James Earl Ray. The interviews and study were conducted to understand their motives and methods.

John Douglas was the model for actor Scott Glenn’s FBI Agent Jack Crawford character in “The Silence of the Lambs.” The character Holden Ford in the Netflix series “Mindhunters...