Forensic psychology: principles and applications

Forensic Psychology

Fulero, S. And L. Wrightsman. (2008). Forensic Psychology, 3rd edition. Wadsworth.

This is the third edition of a primary text in the subject of forensic psychology. The authors are experts in the field, and the book is organized in relevant, real-world situations by presenting information on the ways a psychologist would serve the legal system by being an expert witness, assessing juries, advocacy in child custody hearings, and criminal profilers. The authors focus on the multi-dimensionality of the field, as well as the danger of becoming an advocate for one view or another, instead of using objective scientific texts and data to understand what occurred. The authors also address the ethical and moral issues of practicing psychologists, and expand upon the role the forensic specialist might need to take in order to fit in under the umbrella of multiple horizontal priorities that is so common in contemporary law enforcement. Unlike many student texts, this book provides an accurate and realistic picture of the field, as well as the career paths available to someone with the interest and drive. Too, much of what the author's say about deviant behavior is just as poignant as it would be in a fictional story. It is, though, the tasks of the authors to correctly and truthfully portray the career as it is, not necessarily how we want it.

Overview- Forensic psychology is a sub-discipline of psychology that uses a multi-disciplinary approach by adding tools and techniques of criminology, sociology, and law to form a means of appropriate interaction with the criminal justice system. Forensic psychology often focuses on not only helping understand the mind of a criminal, but also to bring the language of psychology into the and understandability of the jury, as well as translating legalism into the appropriate format for rule of law as focused on the mindset of the offender. One of the key responsibilities of the forensic psychologist is to understand and be comfortable working within the adversarial legal/judicial system. Since psychology is not an exact science in the sense of every event or situation having the exact same effect upon every individual, but a series of major trends that tend to occur over time with a statistically robust part of the population.

For forensic psychology to be an effective tool within the rubric of the modern criminal justice system, the forensic psychologist must be conversant in a number of disciplines, an understanding of criminal pathology as well as deviant behavior, a multidisciplinary approach and background that spans numerous fields -- which makes the discipline itself one of the most rigorous and intellectually challenging components of psychology.

The Many Hats of the Forensic Psychologist -- as we have noted, forensic psychology is a multidimensional and multidisciplinary approach to a variety of fields that ultimately blends into the criminology field. The clientele of the forensic psychologist is wide as well -- stakeholders include members of the law profession at a variety of levels, the public, and even the accused. Each particular stakeholder has an individual need from the forensic psychologist, and that need is fluid as well -- changing depending on the situation and severity of the incident.

The issue of ethics and morality may be predominant when the forensic psychologist is used by law enforcement. This is not only to assist law enforcement in the profiling or apprehension of a suspect, but the times in which the psychologist is used to assess the psychological health of personnel -- whether after an incident (killing of a subject, firing of a gun, anger management, etc.). This also bleeds over into the specific roles of the forensic psychologist: the trial consultant, evidentiary or suspect evaluation and expert witness, or presentation of psychological terms to appellate or higher Courts. There are of course, temptations in the field. Since it is a multidisciplinary approach, there is often the tendency to overgeneralize deviant behavior and neglect the broad paradigm of "possibilities" and focus on what the individual bias might engender.

Profiling or Guessing- the role of criminal profiling is certainly one in the popular press and media. Television shows such as CSI or Bones bring the task of forensics into the mainstream living room, but these shows tend to focus more on the sexier forms of criminology as opposed to the gray area of forensic psychology. A professional forensic psychologist, though, understands that a typical profile is not meant to be an exact science -- for example, white male, middle age, college educated, frustrated at work, may have had social adjustment issues while an adolescent -- we have just described both a typical serial killer as well as eighty percent of American males born between 1955-1970. Similarly, psychological autopsies, like forensic evaluations tend to be more narrowly focused, interested more in accuracy of events than supposition. For example, often suicides are cases in which a psychological autopsy would be conducted in order to assess some reasons behind the suicide as opposed to the more clinical cause of death.

Sanity Determination -- One of the major roles of the contemporary forensic psychologist is to ascertain the psychological health of a subject as to their ability to understand the legal process, whether they were legally sane when the crime in question was committed, and whether they know the intellectual and societal definition of right and wrong. Often, the advanced sociopathic personality is able to mask responses in standardized psychological tests -- they are bright enough, studied enough, to fool the test and therefore invalidate basic tests. Thus, the task of the forensic psychologist is to remove those barriers and focus on the actual pathology of the subject in question; which is not only difficult, but never completely definable.

The Dark Side -- Dealing with deviant behaviors is also one of the tasks of the forensic psychologist. The human psyche has a large range of behaviors, and unfortunately some of them result in violence, child abuse, sexual offenses, and behaviors so bizarre that most reasonable people can only understand the results by forming the impression that the perpetrator is insane. The goal for the forensic psychologist is often to assess the risk/threat behavior, and to reply to the Court or law enforcement whether there is a public danger or menace, as well as assess individual situations for possible dangers to individuals or families.