Rossmo to lecture on criminal investigative failures

Posted by University News Service

March 27, 2009

World renowned criminologist Kim Rossmo will lecture on criminal investigative failures at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 7, in the Alkek Library Teaching Theater on the Texas State University-San Marcos campus.

The event is free of charge and open to the public.

The lecture is based on Rossmo’s new book and will cover such topics as problems underlying unsolved investigations and wrongful convictions, tunnel vision and cognitive biases, groupthink and organizational traps, and probability errors in forensic science and criminal profiling.

Rossmo is a research professor in the Texas State Department of Criminal Justice and director of the department’s Center for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation. His research has focused on the criminal investigative function and the geography of crime. He is currently studying the geographic and geological features associated with criminal border crossings and the spatial patterns of insurgency bombings.

A former detective inspector for the Vancouver Police Department, Rossmo served as a police officer for more than 20 years. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Saskatchewan and a master’s and doctorate from Simon Fraser University. He is credited with developing the science of geographic profiling used in criminal investigations.

For further information, contact the Texas State Department of Criminal Justice at (512) 245-2174.