Read Forensic Psychology For Dummies Online
Authors: David Canter
Forensic Psychology For Dummies (6 page)
Finding out that forensic psychology isn’t forensics
Forensic psychology isn’t
forensics
, which is the application of science in legal investigations, such as the chemistry of poisons, the physics of bullets, determining the time of death or how a person was killed. In other words, all the aspects of the Crime Scene Investigation featuring in so many TV crime series.
The examination of the scene of a crime and the exploration of the forensic evidence that can be drawn from the crime is sometimes useful to a forensic psychologist, for example in challenging an offender’s claim in therapy.
Although in some crime fiction the forensic scientist may offer up opinions about the mental state of the offender or similar speculations to keep the storyline moving, this activity is quite different to forensic psychology.
Distinguishing forensic psychology from psychiatry
Psychologists aren’t
psychiatrists
– doctors treating mental illness and related matters, which some legal systems call ‘diseases of the mind’. Psychiatrists are allowed to prescribe drugs and other forms of medical treatment and specialise in working with people who have problems in relating or their ability to deal effectively with others and the world around them.
To help their patients, psychiatrists may use talking therapies as well as medical interventions. Treatment can include the type of intensive psychotherapy initiated by Sigmund Freud, called
psychoanalysis
. When they’re not prescribing pills, electric shock therapy, or brain surgery and are treating their mentally ill patients by non-invasive means, psychiatrists are drawing on psychological research.
Recognising What Forensic Psychology Is
Psychologists
start out studying general psychology, focusing on such things as memory, learning, personality, and social interaction. Psychology students examine which bits of the brain light up when different activities are engaged in and the biological and genetic basis of human experience. Therefore they do study some of the areas that medical students explore, but in far less detail.
After finishing general undergraduate training, psychologists can specialise in a number of different areas of psychology, including occupational, educational, health, or even environmental psychology. Psychologists do further training, if they want to get a professional post in one of these areas. (In Chapter 18, I list the stages in becoming a professional forensic psychologist.)
Psychologists working at providing assessment and therapy with mentally ill people are called
clinical psychologists,
and their activities overlap with those of psychiatrists. In times past there was quite a turf war going on between clinical psychologists and psychiatrists, but in recent years both professions have come to respect each other and recognise the value of working together.
Some psychiatrists specialise even further and work mainly with patients brought to them through the legal system. They’re known as
forensic psychiatrists
. The medical profession is held in such high regard by the courts that at one time only psychiatrists were allowed to give evidence on the mental state of defendants. That has changed over the last decade or two and now psychologists often provide expert evidence in court.
The term
forensic
originally meant ‘of service to the court’ but its meaning has broadened out to cover anything connected to crime, criminals and the court of law.
Psychologists
focus on how people think, feel and act. However, a forensic psychologist may explore many different aspects of a crime, and the easiest way to approach his role is by thinking of crime as a process. This process is described in this section.
Step 1: Crime starts with a criminal
A crime occurs or is created by the criminal. The crime may involve the victim suffering direct personal violence or indirectly, as in a burglary of their home when they aren’t present (the experience isn’t indirect, I just mean that no direct personal confrontation is involved). A number of psychological issues are relevant at this stage, notably the characteristics of the criminal and how they see or create the opportunities for crime. The consequences for victims of crime (an increasingly important area of forensic psychology) are important too, although often forgotten about in crime fiction and sometimes in real life. (Flip to Chapter 7 for more about helping victims.)
As a forensic psychologist, I’m interested in the implications of different kinds and styles of crime. Do some crimes require more intelligence or are some likely to be a product of anger or lack of self-control? The recurring debate about whether criminals are born or made (often called the ‘nature versus nurture’ controversy) is central to these considerations. You can find out more about ‘nature or nurture’ in Chapter 2.
Where the term forensic psychology comes from
A little Latin is a useful thing. The word
forensic
comes from the Latin
forens
, meaning the Forum, which was the meeting place for sorting out your differences in ancient Rome. The Forum is the origin of the modern court. Now anything that provides help or a service to a court of law is known as
forensic.
That’s why you have forensic scientists, forensic pathologists, and even forensic archaeologists. They draw on their own experience and knowledge to give evidence in court that helps the judge and jury make decisions. Originally, only psychologists who gave expert evidence in court were called forensic psychologists, but nowadays any psychologist who helps with anything to do with legal procedures, policing or offenders may be called a forensic psychologist, even if they never set foot in a court of law.The term
forensic
has become so widespread that it’s now attached to any psychologist who has anything to do with crime, criminals or their victims in a way that’s relevant to detection, trials, treatment or imprisonment, or the impact of crime. Now the term
forensic
has gone as far as including those psychologists who help in selecting people to become police officers although their work doesn’t involve anything at all to do with legal proceedings.
Forensic
now includes the crime psychologist (I prefer that to ‘criminal psychologist’ because that sounds as if a dodgy psychologist is being mentioned!), police psychologist, investigative psychologist, and prison psychologist – all terms that overlap with forensic psychologist. To add to this confusion the label takes on different meanings in different countries because different legal systems allow different sorts of expert intervention. I explain some of these differences where they’re especially relevant in the book.So forensic psychology is like many terms in common use – difficult to define precisely but you recognise it when you see it.
Don’t get too het up about defining the term forensic psychology and instead look at what forensic psychologists do and where they do it. Some experts may think that I cast the net too wide in this book and others may think that I leave out important areas. But I’m sure they all agree that forensic psychology is a fascinating and vibrant part of modern psychology.
Step 2: Reporting of the crime
Most reports consist of a person giving a verbal account of the crime and, if an investigation follows, the crime scene is examined (the job of trained crime scene investigators). A victim or witness in a police interview gives an account of the crime with the interviewer attempting to get the interviewee to remember as clearly as possible what happened. (I discuss witnesses and interviews in more detail in Chapter 4.) Psychologists have been studying memory for well over 150 years and nowadays a lot is known about how the memory works, which is relevant to improving police interviews.
When a suspect is interviewed (and some witnesses), issues of lying and other forms of deception may come into play. (I describe these issues in further detail in Chapter 6.) The possibility of detecting lying and deception is likely to be a great help, and plenty of psychologists have had a go at this tricky problem. Establishing if you’re being told the truth is especially important where a person may be making a false allegation that a crime occurred, or in the unexpected, but not uncommon, false admission to a crime.