The survey found profiles helpful in only 17 percent of the cases that were solved. Even highly regarded criminal profilers admit that profiling can fail miserably when it is done without expertise, facts or caution. Despite the lack of evidence about its efficacy, profiling seems to remain popular with police authorities and more recently has been promoted by the U.S. Department of Education and the National School Safety Center, a resource organization in Westlake Village, Calif., funded partly by the U.S. Department of Justice. Profile lists already exist and are readily accessible to school leaders. The guide includes a profile in the form of a checklist of early warning signs to help administrators identify youth at risk for violent behavior and actions.
Close inspection reveals the two lists are inconsistent and greatly diverge from one another.
This leaves school administrators with the daunting task of deciding which list to use and suggests little empirical evidence is available to make this task any easier or defensible in a court of law. Another problem with the lists is the ambiguity of some items. In addition, many characteristics could be detected only in a setting where the teachers know their students as well as their own flesh and blood. In an ideal world teachers would know their students this well. Perhaps the answer for school leaders lies in restructuring large school populations and class sizes to personalize students experiences rather than turning to profiling in an environment that seems unsuited for its use.