Read Forensic Psychology For Dummies Online
Authors: David Canter
Forensic Psychology For Dummies (3 page)
Dedication
For Rosie, Robin and Felix in the hope that what is dealt with in this book will always remain irrelevant to them.
Author’s Acknowledgements
The work of many colleagues has been drawn on unashamedly in this book. It is not the
For Dummies
format to cite these directly. However, I would like to mention that I have found the work of my colleagues Kevin Browne and Donna Youngs, as well as more distant associates Curt and Anne Bartol to be of particular value. Graham Davies reviewed the draft thoroughly and I have incorporated his suggestions, although of course any errors are mine. The compendium put together by Jennifer Brown and the late Elizabeth Campbell, is also a masterwork that I found very useful. Lionel Haward, sadly missed, encouraged me in the early days of my involvement with the law, so his influence is never very far from this book. As ever, I am grateful to my agent, Doreen Montgomery, for her help. My obsession with getting this book written has been endured by Sandra Canter with her love, support and good humour that is taxed every time I take up one of my writing commitments.
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Foreword
I first encountered Professor David Canter’s work and world in a book he published in 1994 called
Criminal Shadows.
Its subtitle was ‘Inside the Mind of the Serial Killer’, and it interested me because I felt it might help me get beneath the skin of the fictional criminals I was writing about in my ‘Inspector Rebus’ novels. That book was clear-sighted and level-headed. Hannah Arendt had already coined the term ‘the banality of evil’ to describe Nazism and the atrocities which took place in its name. Professor Canter explained that real-life serial killers are seldom like their rococo fictional equivalents. These killers tend towards the banal and colourless; they are lucky rather than preternaturally skilful – and they seldom play complicated mind games with their pursuers.
There is still a place for the likes of Hannibal Lecter in fiction, of course, but he and his ilk belong to the realm of legend and folk-tale. The book you are currently reading will explain why – but it will do a lot more. Professor Canter is an entertaining, comprehensive and comprehensible guide who pricks the myth (perpetuated in film, on TV, and in novels) of the forensic psychologist as a gifted but antisocial loner with drink and relationship problems. In real life, forensic psychologists look at why humans commit crimes and what types of crime they are likely to commit. They also ponder the nature of evil, and whether evil itself can ever be ‘diagnosed’.
In this book you will find a clear explanation of terms such as psychosis, schizophrenia and sadism - terms bandied about in life as in fiction, but not always with any great degree of accuracy.
Professor Canter also looks at the ways in which we can tell if someone is lying, taking in everything from body language to brain-mapping. Forensic psychologists work with various law agencies and may be called upon to help with witness interviews. One of many fascinating cases discussed here concerns a kidnapped bus driver and the use of hypnosis to garner witness evidence.
As a criminal profiler, the author is well-equipped to debunk many of the common misconceptions around that specialism. Profiling can be helpful to the police, but it has to be used with care. Professor Canter cites the case of an attacker who had long fingernails on one of his hands. The investigating officers deduced that they were looking for a guitarist. Had this been a Sherlock Holmes story, they would undoubtedly have been correct, but there was actually another less obvious explanation.
Importantly, Professor David Canter also looks at how forensic psychology can aid victims of crime. Victims are often forgotten about, in life as in fiction. Here they are given due prominence.
Whether you are a serious student or have a casual interest, this book will deepen your knowledge of forensic psychology. I dare say crime writers will find it useful, too, even though we continue to portray our killers as exaggerated monsters with penchants for puzzles, fava beans and a nice chianti.
Ian Rankin
Introduction
In 1985, a senior police officer at Scotland Yard asked me to attend a meeting to plan an investigation into a series of rapes and murders committed around London. Up until that point during my work as a psychologist, I’d had very little contact with the police or criminals and was rather taken aback when asked whether I ‘could help catch this man before he kills again’. I agreed to assist the investigation and its eventual success changed my life. As a result I was drawn ever more intensively into a wide range of police investigations, and then into commenting on psychological evidence presented in court. I began considering rehabilitation programmes for offenders and examining processes for assessing the possible risk they posed if they were released. I talked to killers and burglars and many other criminals and their victims.
I was now part of the burgeoning field of forensic psychology, reading its journals, giving keynote addresses at conferences, and debating with colleagues and students how many aspects of behavioural science (particularly psychology) were informed by, and carried consequences for, the full range of legal issues. I became increasingly enthusiastic about the evolving ways in which psychology is influencing all aspects of the legal process.
Since that fateful day, I discovered that many people, in all walks of life, have questions about what makes criminals tick, and how psychology can be used throughout the investigation, prosecution, treatment and rehabilitation of criminals and to help their victims. This book aims to answer those questions.
About This Book
In this book, I cover what happens from when a crime is first reported through to dealing with convicted offenders and, where possible, helping them to desist from future criminality. I include many examples of forensic psychology in action to bring the excitement of this professional activity to life.
Here are a few things, however, that you won’t read about in this book: the motives that so delight crime fiction writers (greed, jealousy, revenge . . . in fact I avoid using the vague term ‘motive’ at all); whether criminals did (or didn’t) get on with their mothers; or whether something is wrong with their biology. Instead,
Forensic Psychology For Dummies
gives you a much wider and more interesting landscape to explore. I go beyond the myths of such popular ideas as ‘offender profiling’ and deeper than whether criminals are born or made. In this book, I show you what forensic psychologists actually do, and why they do it in the ways that they do.
Although psychologists tend to drift into jargon, writing about most of what they do without technical terms is perfectly possible. On the few occasions when specialist words are needed, I make sure that their meaning is clear. So, if you know absolutely nothing of psychology, this book is for you. If you’ve read or studied any psychology before, many aspects are here presented in a new light. If you’ve already had some contact with forensic psychology or are considering it as a career path, the breadth of coverage provides a map to help you find your way.
Forensic psychology is a professional area of activity. So I do describe some of the requirements and challenges that professionalism creates. But even if you’re only curious as to what all the fuss is about, knowing the underlying principles and processes may come in handy if ever you come into contact with a real-life forensic psychologist (they aren’t usually scary, honest).
I think of books in a library as being in conversation with each other, drawing on what they’re about and offering connections for others to pick up.
Forensic Psychology For Dummies
is part of a gaggle of books chatting to each other. Where you can get more detail elsewhere I make that clear, but bear in mind that I’m using my own point of view to cover what’s written about in other
books and, as in any conversation, not everyone agrees with each other. So if you want to check out what others have to say, by all means take a look at
Criminology For Dummies
by Stephen Briggs (Wiley) and
Forensics For Dummies
by Douglas P. Lyle (Wiley).
Because forensic psychology has such close contacts with the law I mention the legal issues whenever I absolutely have to, but I’m a psychologist not a lawyer. So if you want to get to grips with all that stuff, do what I do and read
Law For Dummies
by John Ventura (Wiley), although be warned that it’s about the law in the US and every country has its own way of doing legal things. Although the views of criminologists, political scientists, historians and anthropologists, to name just a few, are extremely valuable I don’t engage with these disciplines. This book is about forensic psychology and psychologists focus on individuals and their relationships with others.
Conventions Used in This Book
I use a few conventions to help you find your way around this book easily:
Italic
highlights new, often specialist, terms that I always define nearby, and is also sometimes used for emphasis.
text indicates the action part of numbered steps.
Although I keep the number of technical terms and jargon to an absolute minimum, all professional activities include words that have precise meanings for people within that profession. Mastery of these italicised terms enables you to bluff your way in any discussions of crime and criminals.
I try to avoid specific gender stereotyping, but the writing can get very lumpy if I do so all the time. Therefore, every now and then I refer to an individual offender as ‘he’. The fact that the great majority of criminals, 80 per cent or more, are men means that referring to them as male is usually accurate. Of course, this assumption doesn’t mean that women never commit crimes; it just keeps the writing simpler. If I need to refer to specifically female criminals, or make clear that a higher proportion of offenders than normal of a particular crime are female, I do so.
You should also note that a very high proportion of Forensic Psychologists are women, so sometimes it makes sense to refer to them as ‘she’ or ‘her’.
I’d love this book to be a laugh-a-minute, but squeezing humour out of rape and murder, or even the more mundane crimes of burglary and robbery, is difficult if not inappropriate. Criminals themselves aren’t comic (although some of them are clowns). As an expert in court I manage to get a smile out of the jury from time to time, and so whenever I can I do the same here. But please don’t see these attempts to enliven the topic as implying that anything is other than serious.
What You’re Not to Read
One of the problems with most books is that they start at page one and carry on in a straight line until they end on the last page. But ideas don’t always sit along a line so neatly, and often you don’t want to find out about things in the sequence that the writer wants to tell you.
This book is written to take account of such human foibles. In general, each chapter is self-contained and you can read the chapters in any order you like, although the book makes greater sense if you do read chapters in the numbered order. But to help out, I also make any information that you can safely skip easy to recognise. The grey boxes dotted throughout this book (known as
sidebars
) contain historical examples or more detailed theory that may otherwise break the flow of the text. You can skip them or just flick through to get the feel of what’s going on.
Foolish Assumptions
I’ve lectured on psychology to many different audiences for nearly 50 years (‘it don’t seem a day too long, guv’), which helped me to keep a vision in my mind of you while writing this book. The word
Dummies
in the title means only that I assume you’re not an expert in forensic psychology, but that you’re intelligent enough to use this book in the way that works best for you. I assume that you have some combination of the following interests: