A short sociological discussion between two opposing views on the development and use of offender profiling to identify those children “at risk” of becoming criminals.

The discussion can serve as a useful introduction to the debate between positivist criminologists (who believe it possible to predict the potential for criminal behaviour) and interactionist sociologists who focus attention on the social processes (such as labelling) involved in “creating criminals”.

Key concepts covered in this video:

• Prevention

• Reactive and proactive policing

• Surveillance society

• Crime correlations and offender targeting

• Labelling theory

• Risk management

• Underlying causes of crime