It is my opinion that much of modern LEO's abilities to solve crimes are based on maintaining a facade of authority built up by the common perception of their methods.
Only slightly removed from your point - FBI profilers are completely bogus, they employ the same techniques as fortune tellers.
While it's obvious that most "forensic techniques" are at best pseudoscience or folk-knowledge[1], badly needed a lesson or ten in statistics[2], "cold reading" can be a surprisingly useful and powerful technique, when used appropriately.
Many "fortune tellers" often admit, when directly asked, that what they do is little more than basic psychology and counseling. Being able to "cold read" what someone is concerned about - and know the perfect "Barnum Statements"[3] to drop early on to get someone to reveal further key details - is something all psychologists tend to do, to various degrees.
Regarding the FBI and their "profilers"... isn't being able to read people very fast pretty much the very definition of the job? You don't wast time "profiling" someone if you have a mountain of obvious evidence you can use directly. You profile when there isn't sufficient evidence, and we need someone to make a guess on which of the various poor-quality leads should be investigated.
I would hope the FBI hires at least _some_ people with that kind of talent, and comparisons to psychics is likely a good thing, for once.
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That said, this one decent idea by the FBI doesn't do much to offset all those unamerican "plea bargain" games, "asset forfeiture" thefts without a conviction, and countless other abuses of their power we've seen over the last few decades.
Regarding the FBI and their "profilers"... isn't being able to read people very fast pretty much the very definition of the job?
No. FBI profilers don't even interact with suspects - they examine crime scene details and then make up a profile of the perpetrator that other agents and police then try to use as a lead.
"Reading people" doesn't require interaction. They, as you say, apply cold-reading style techniques (and other techniques, of course) to the selection of evidence and testimony available in the case.
In the end, though, they are similar to the "psychics" and confidence men; they need to quickly discover some key insights into a person's personality from (often VERY) limited data.
Also note: the very best cold-reading grifters/con-men don't have to interact with the suspect ("mark") either, sy least initially. It's part of how the mark is selected in the first place.
I think you would be well served by actually reading the New Yorker article that I linked to instead of making up your own scenarios that are completely unrelated.
Only slightly removed from your point - FBI profilers are completely bogus, they employ the same techniques as fortune tellers.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/11/12/071112fa_fact_...
http://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2007/11/fbi-crimin...