Ressler, Robert K.

AMERICAN
CRIMINOLOGIST

Former Supervisory Special Agent and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) criminologist Robert K. Ressler was with the FBI's elite Behavioral Sciences Unit (BSU) for sixteen of his twenty years with the Bureau. Ressler served on active duty in the United States Army for ten years, and then remained in the Reserves until his retirement at the Rank of Colonel, with thirty-five years of service. While in the Army, he served in the Military Police Corps and was a criminal investigation officer with the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) in Washington, D.C. Ressler attended graduate school at Michigan State University and earned a master's degree. A Special Agent in the FBI's Lansing, Michigan, office who eventually became the Assistant Director of the FBI's Training Academy in Quantico recruited him. When the Academy opened in 1972, the BSU was established. Special Agents Howard Teten and Pat Mullany were the pioneers in developing the BSU's metatheory and psychological approach to criminal behavioral profiling that was to strongly influence both the FBI and the worldwide forensic science community for the remainder of the century. Mullany and Teten formed the original FBI profiling and crime scene assessment team. As the profiling program began to gather momentum, more agents were recruited for training. When the FBI's Training Academy opened in 1972, the Unit was officially established. Ressler was recruited into the BSU in 1974, and was initially involved as a training instructor for new Academy students.

Ressler remained with the BSU for the next sixteen years, until his retirement from the Bureau in August of 1990. During that time, he was responsible for creating many programs leading to the development of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. He was the catalyst and director of the FBI's first research program concerning violent criminal offenders, and, as such, interviewed and collected data on thirty-six serial and sexual murderers. The program resulted in the publication of two textbooks: Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives (1988) and the Crime Classification Manual (1992). Ressler is credited with having originated the term "serial killer."

In 1985, he became the first Program Manager for the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP). The goal of VICAP was to gather all possible information about both solved and unsolved homicides, concentrating on those that were random, involved abduction and/or were serial in pattern. Added to the database was information about unidentified corpses for whom the manner of death appeared to be homicide, and missing persons for whom foul play was strongly suspected. The database was could be accessed and added to as a crime-solving tool, by law enforcement agencies, both within the United States and internationally.

Since his retirement from the FBI, Ressler has continued to play an active role in the world of forensic science. He is a criminologist in private practice as well as a popular international lecturer and public speaker. He continues to consult with law enforcement agencies, and to testify as an expert witness on both civil and criminal cases. Robert Ressler is the Director of the Virginia-based Forensic Behavioral Services, a training, lecturing, expert witness, and consulting agency. His particular areas of interest remain criminology, criminal personality profiling, sexual assaults, workplace violence, crime scene analysis, hostage negotiation, homicide (especially serial and sexual murders), and threat assessment.