Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is an investigative strategy used by law enforcement agencies to identify likely suspects and has been used by investigators to link cases that may have been committed by the same person. Multiple crimes may be linked to a specific offender and the profile may be used to predict the identified offender's future actions. In the 1980s, most researchers believed offender profiling was relevant only to sex crimes, but since the late 1990s research has been published to support its application to arson (1998), and then later terrorism (2000) and burglary (2017).
Profiling can also allow a peek into a person's mental state, so yes the method a profiler uses to create their profile those matters.
