Criminal psychology, also called forensic psychology, is the study of the attitudes, thoughts, intentions, actions, and thus reactions of criminals and everything involved in criminal behavior. The use of this term is rare in the scientific literature today, as it is generally understood that crime is behavior, and participation in crime does not mean that someone is a criminal.
Accepted practices
Many common practices in forensic psychology, such as profiling, have been discredited and are no longer supported by scholars or professionals in the modern fields of forensic psychology or criminology. It is related to the field of criminal anthropology. The study takes a detailed look at the reasons why someone commits a crime, as well as reactions after the crime, on the run, or in court. Criminal psychologists are often called upon as witnesses in legal cases to help jurors understand the criminal's mind. Some types of psychiatrydeal with aspects of criminal behavior.
Forensic psychology
Forensic psychology is the intersection of psychology and the justice system. This includes an understanding of fundamental legal principles, especially with regard to expert testimony and the specific subject area of concern (for example, competence to stand trial, child custody, or discrimination in the workplace), as well as relevant jurisdictional considerations (for example, in the United States, the definition insanity in criminal trials differs from state to state) in order to be able to properly interact with judges, lawyers and other lawyers. This is well described in Bogomolova's book "Forensic Psychology".
Requirements and challenges of the profession
An important aspect of forensic psychology is the ability to testify in court as an expert witness, reformulating psychological findings into legal courtroom language, providing information in a way that can be understood.
In addition to being a credible witness, a forensic psychologist must understand the philosophy, rules, and standards of the court system. First of all, they must understand the competitive system. There are also rules about evidence of rumors and, most importantly, an exclusionary rule. Lack of a solid understanding of these procedures will cause the forensic psychologist to lose credibility in the courtroom. Judiciala psychologist may be trained in clinical, social, organizational, or any other field of psychology. Typically, a forensic psychologist is appointed as an expert in a particular field of study. The number of areas of expertise in which a forensic psychologist qualifies as an expert increases with experience and reputation, as described in Forensic Psychology by S. N. Bogomolova.
Forensic neuropsychiatrists
Forensic neuropsychiatrists are usually asked to serve as expert witnesses in brain injury cases. They may also deal with questions about whether a person is legally competent to stand trial. Questions asked in court by a forensic psychologist are generally not questions relating to psychology, but are legal questions, and the answer must be in a language that the court understands. For example, the court often appoints a forensic psychologist to assess a defendant who is in court.
The court also often appoints a forensic psychologist to assess the defendant's state of mind at the time of the crime. This is called an assessment of the defendant's sanity or insanity (as far as criminal liability is concerned) at the time the crime was committed. These are not psychological questions, but rather legal ones. Thus, a forensic psychologist must be able to translate psychological information into a legal framework. As mentioned earlier, all these processes are perfectly described in "Forensic Psychology" by Viktor Obraztsov, Sappho Bogomolova).
Other duties
Forensic psychologists may be called to provide sentencing recommendations, treatment recommendations, or any other information requested by the judge, such as information on mitigating factors, future risk assessment, and witness credibility. Forensic psychology also includes the training and evaluation of police officers or other law enforcement officers, the provision of criminal data to law enforcement officers, and other ways of working with police departments. Forensic psychologists can work with any party in criminal or family law.
Psychiatrists and psychologists are licensed professionals who can assess both mental and physical conditions. They look for patterns in behavior to characterize the individuals behind the crime
Recognition as sane or insane
The question of competence before the court is the question of the current state of the offender. This assesses the ability of the offender to understand the charges brought against him, the possible outcomes of a conviction/acquittal on those charges, and their ability to assist the defense attorney in his defence. The issue of sanity/insanity or criminal liability is an assessment of the state of offenders at the time of the crime. This refers to their ability to understand what is right and what is wrong. The insanity defense is rarely used, as it is very difficult to prove. If he is declared insane, the criminal is placed in a safe hospital facility for muchmore time than he would have served time in prison.
Responsibilities of criminal psychologists
Obraztsov's book "Forensic Psychology" describes four ways in which a psychologist can act with professional participation in the criminal process. Here they are:
- Clinical: In this situation, the psychologist participates in the personality assessment to give a clinical opinion. The psychologist may use assessment tools, interviews, or psychometric tools. These assessments can help the police or other comparable organizations determine how to handle the person in question. For example, to help find out if he or she is capable of standing trial or if the person has a mental illness, which is related to whether he or she is able to not understand the proceedings.
- Experimental: In this case, the task of the psychologist is to carry out the research. This may include conducting experimental tests to illustrate the point or provide additional information to the courts.
- Actuarial: This role includes the use of statistics to inform the case. For example, a psychologist may be asked to provide a probability of an event occurring, or courts may be asked what is the likelihood that a person will reopen a case if the sentence is denied.
- Advisory: Here the psychologist can advise the police on how to proceed with the investigation. For example, how best to interview a person, how best to cross-examine, how the offender will proceed aftercrime.
Profiling
The main body of criminal psychology known as criminal profiling began in the 1940s when William L. Langer's brother, renowned psychiatrist W alter C. Langer, was asked by the US Office of Strategic Services to profile Adolf Hitler. After World War II, British psychologist Lionel Howard, while working with the Royal Air Force police, compiled a list of characteristics that high-ranking war criminals might have to distinguish them from ordinary captured soldiers and airmen.
Lombroso's contribution
It is believed that the famous Italian psychologist Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) was one of the first criminologists to attempt to formally classify criminals by age, sex, physical characteristics, education and geographic region. Comparing these similar characteristics, he better understood the origin of the motivation for criminal behavior, and in 1876 he published his book The Crime Man.
Lombroso studied 383 Italian prisoners. Based on his research, he suggested that there are three types of criminals. There were born criminals who were degenerates and insane delinquents who suffered from mental illness. The scientist also found specific physical characteristics: several examples included facial asymmetry, defects and features of the eyes, unusually sized ears, etc.
Further explorers
In the 1950sAmerican psychiatrist James A. Brussels developed what turned out to be an incredibly accurate characterization of the man who terrorized New York City.
Movies based on the fictional works of author Thomas Harris have been made that brought the profession to public attention, notably The Headhunter (1986) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). The most rapid development occurred when the FBI opened its training academy, the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) in Quantico, Virginia.
This led to the creation of the National Center for Violent Crime Analysis and a program to apprehend criminals. The idea was to create a system that could identify links between unsolved major crimes.
According to the book "Forensic Psychology" (V. A. Obraztsova, S. N. Bogomolova), in the United Kingdom, Professor David Kanter was an innovator who helped lead police detectives from the mid-1980s on the trail of a criminal who committed a series of serious attacks. He and a colleague coined the term "investigative psychology", trying to approach the subject from what they considered a more scientific point of view.
Essence and perspectives
Criminal profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is the process of associating a criminal's actions at a crime scene with their most likely characteristics to help police investigators prioritize the most likelysuspects. Profiling is a relatively new and promising area of forensic psychology that has evolved over the past 20 years from what used to be an art to a rigorous science. Criminal profiling, which is part of a field of forensic psychology called investigative psychology, is based on increasingly rigorous methodological advances and empirical research.
