Research

Six essays

The long version of what the front page shows in a line. Each opens on a documented event, then follows the research. Start anywhere.

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A suburban street at dusk seen through a rain-flecked windscreen, a child's bicycle against a far fence.
01 · Grooming

The long approach

Grooming is the slow work before abuse: access, trust, isolation, secrecy. Offenders describe it plainly. Researchers find almost nobody can see it while it happens.

5 min read
A clipboard with a blank tick-box scoring sheet, a pen and a stopwatch on a steel table in a bare interview room.
02 · Psychopathy

Forty points

The Psychopathy Checklist is scored from 0 to 40 by a person, from an interview and a file. The same file can come back with different numbers depending on who is paying.

5 min read
An overhead view of a wet pedestrian crossing at night, walkers visible only as long shadows.
03 · Victimology

The walk

In 1981 researchers filmed people walking down a New York street and asked inmates convicted of assault who they would pick. Their answers were consistent. The research is about the reader, not the walker.

5 min read
A fingerprint card on a forensic light table under a magnifier, with red comparison lines drawn between two prints.
04 · Investigations

The print on the bag

In 2004 the FBI matched a fingerprint from the Madrid train bombings to an Oregon lawyer. Four experts agreed. It was not his. The Inspector General's report shows how good examiners talked themselves into it.

5 min read
A heron standing perfectly still in black water at dawn, its reflection sharp in the mist.
05 · Predatory violence

Cold and hot

Most violence is hot: a threat, a surge, an attack that is over in minutes. A smaller share is cold: planned, quiet, aimed. Forensic science treats them as two different things, and the difference shows up in the files.

4 min read
An empty wooded common at first light, a footpath disappearing into fog between birch trees.
06 · Profiling

The profile and the common

In 1992 a psychologist's profile shaped a London murder investigation around the wrong man. The research since says most claims in real profiles cannot be checked, and profilers barely beat everyone else.

4 min read