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Criminal Minds season 12

season of television series

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ24700175 ↗
Source-derived summary

The twelfth season of Criminal Minds was ordered on May 6, 2016, by CBS with an order of 22 episodes. The season premiered on September 28, 2016, and ended on May 10, 2017.

Cast

Main

Joe Mantegna as Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi (BAU Senior Agent)

Matthew Gray Gubler as Supervisory Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid (BAU Agent)

A. J. Cook as Supervisory Special Agent Jennifer "JJ" Jareau (BAU Agent)

Kirsten Vangsness as Special Agent Penelope Garcia (BAU Technical Analyst & Co-Communications Liaison)

Damon Gupton as Supervisory Special Agent Stephen Walker (BAU Agent)

Aisha Tyler as Supervisory Special Agent Dr. Tara Lewis (BAU Agent)

Adam Rodriguez as Supervisory Special Agent Luke Alvez (FBI Fugitive Task Force & BAU Agent)

Thomas Gibson as Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner (BAU Unit Chief & Co-Communications Liaison) (Ep. 1–2)

Paget Brewster as Supervisory Special Agent Emily Prentiss (BAU Unit Chief & Co-Communications Liaison) (Ep. 3–22)

Special guest star

Jane Lynch as Diana Reid

Alana de la Garza as Clara Seger

Daniel Henney as Supervisory Special Agent Matt Simmons (BAU Agent)

Shemar Moore as Derek Morgan

Recurring

Bodhi Elfman as Peter Lewis / Mr. Scratch

Angela Robinson Witherspoon as Cassie Campbell

Jeananne Goossen as Fiona Duncan

Harold Perrineau as Calvin Shaw

Richard T. Jones as Officer Lionel Wilkins

Gia Mantegna as Lindsey Vaughn

Aubrey Plaza as Cat Adams

Josh Stewart as William "Will" LaMontagne Jr.

Mekhai Andersen as Henry LaMontagne

Guest

Sherilyn Fenn as Gloria Barker

Pooch Hall as FBI Trainee Clark

Tatum O'Neal as Miranda White

David Otunga as Dwayne Jerrard

Beth Riesgraf as Maeve Donovan

Tracie Thoms as Monica Walker

Production

Development

Criminal Minds was renewed for a twelfth season with an episode order of 22 episodes on May 6, 2016. The season began on September 28, 2016.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Criminal Minds season 12” is season of television series. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Criminal, Minds and season, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2016, 2017—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Criminal, Minds and season is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “season of television series” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q24700175. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2016 and 2017.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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Verify next

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Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Criminal Minds season 12”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Criminal Minds season 12 primary sources, Criminal Minds season 12 archive and Criminal research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Criminal Minds season 12” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.