ABSTRACT
Growing awareness of the serial nature of a significant proportion of sexual crimes has motivated scientific and behavioral efforts to determine ways of linking crimes perpetrated by a single offender. Law enforcement has historically linked crimes through behaviors of the offender and other elements of the crimes, referring somewhat generically to these dynamics as the “MO,” or modus operandi, used or demonstrated by a particular criminal. The ritualistic aspects of a sexual crime emanate from the internal psychology of a particular offender as opposed to the situational demands of committing a crime. The signature is viewed as a highly individualized combination of habitual aspects of offending behavior combined with the fantasy and motive for a particular series of crimes perpetrated by a single offender. Occasionally, the signature is presented in the courtroom by qualified experts to enhance legal arguments that a series of crimes, separated often by time and distance, were committed by the same offender.
