Criminal psychology, also called forensic psychology, is the study of the views, thoughts, intentions, actions, and thus the reactions of criminals and everything involved in criminal behavior. The use of this term is rarely used in the scientific literature today, as it is usually understood: a crime is behavior, and participation in a crime does not mean that someone is a criminal.
Accepted practices
Many common forensic psychology practices, such as profiling, have been discredited, and are no longer supported by scholars or professionals in contemporary areas of forensic psychology or criminology. This is related to the field of criminal anthropology. The study examines in detail the reasons why someone commits a crime, as well as reactions after the crime, on the run or in court. Criminal psychologists are often involved as witnesses in court cases to help jurors understand the perpetrator’s opinion. Some types of psychiatry also deal 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 testimonies and a specific subject matter of concern (e.g. competence in court, child custody or workplace discrimination), as well as relevant jurisdictional considerations (e.g. in the United States, the definition of insanity in criminal proceedings 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 the psychological findings in the legal language of the courtroom, providing information so that it can be understood.
In addition, to be a credible witness, a forensic psychologist must understand the philosophy, rules, and standards of the judiciary. First of all, they must understand the system of competition. There are also rules on evidence of rumors and, most importantly, an exclusionary rule. Lack of a solid understanding of these procedures will lead to the fact that the forensic psychologist will lose credibility in the courtroom. A forensic psychologist can be trained in clinical, social, organizational, or any other field of psychology. As a rule, a forensic psychologist is appointed by an expert in a specific field of research. The number of areas of expertise in which a forensic psychologist qualifies as an expert increases with experience and reputation, as described in the "Forensic Psychology" by S. N. Bogomolova.
Forensic psychoneurologists
Forensic psychoneurologists are usually asked to act as expert witnesses to discuss cases involving brain damage. They can also deal with whether a person is legally competent to stand trial. The questions asked in court by a forensic psychologist are usually not questions related to psychology, but are legal questions, and the answer should be in a language that the court understands. For example, a court often appoints a forensic psychologist to evaluate a defendant who is facing trial.
The court also often appoints a forensic psychologist to assess the state of consciousness of the defendant at the time the crime was committed. This is called an assessment of the sanity or insanity of the defendant (regarding criminal liability) at the time the crime was committed. These are not psychological issues, but rather legal ones. Thus, the forensic psychologist must be able to translate psychological information into the legal framework. As mentioned earlier, all these processes are perfectly described in the "Forensic Psychology" by Viktor Obraztsov, Sappho Bogomolova).
Other duties
Forensic psychologists can be called to provide sentencing recommendations, treatment recommendations, or any other information that a judge asks for information, such as information about mitigating factors, an assessment of future risk, and the reliability of a witness’s testimony. Forensic psychology also includes the training and evaluation of police officers or other law enforcement officials, the provision of criminal data to law enforcement officials, and other ways of working with police departments. Forensic psychologists can work with either party under criminal or family law.
Psychiatrists and psychologists are licensed specialists who can evaluate both mental and physical conditions. They seek patterns in behavior to characterize individuals behind the crime.
Recognition of sane or insane
The issue of competence before the court is a question of the current state of the offender. At the same time, the ability of the offender to understand the charges against him, the possible results of the conviction / acquittal on these charges and their ability to help the lawyer in defense are assessed. The issue of sanity / insanity or criminal liability is an assessment of the state of offenders at the time the crime was committed. This refers to their ability to understand what is right and what is bad. The defense of insanity is rarely used, as it is very difficult to prove. If recognized as insane, the offender is placed in a safe hospital facility for a much longer time than he would serve a term in prison.
Responsibilities of Criminal Psychologists
Obraztsov’s book, Forensic Psychology, describes four ways that a psychologist can act with professional participation in the criminal process. Here they are:
- Clinical: in this situation, the psychologist is involved in the assessment of personality to give a clinical conclusion. The psychologist may use assessment tools, interviews, or psychometric tools. These assessments can help the police or other comparable organizations determine how to process the person. For example, to help determine whether he is able to stand trial or whether a 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 perform the study. This may include conducting experimental tests to illustrate the point or provide additional information to ships.
- Actual: this role includes the use of statistics to inform the case. For example, a psychologist may be asked to provide a probability of occurrence of the event, or the courts may ask what is the likelihood that a person will re-initiate proceedings if the sentence is rejected.
- Advisory: here the psychologist can advise the police on how to continue the investigation. For example, what is the best way to interview a person, how best to conduct cross-examination, how the offender will act after committing a crime.
Profiling
The bulk of criminal psychology, known as criminal profiling, began in the 1940s when the U.S. Strategic Services Department asked brother William L. Langer, the famous psychiatrist Walter C. Langer, to compile a profile of Adolf Hitler. After World War II, the British psychologist Lionel Howard, working in the Royal Air Force police, compiled a list of characteristics that high-ranking war criminals might have in order to identify them among ordinary captured soldiers and pilots.
Contribution of Lombroso
It is believed that the famous Italian psychologist Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) was one of the first criminologists who attempted to officially classify criminals by age, gender, physical characteristics, education and geographical region. Comparing these similar characteristics, he better understood the origin of the motivation for criminal behavior, and in 1876 he published his book, The Criminal 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 offenders who suffered from a mental illness. The scientist also found specific physical characteristics: several examples included facial asymmetry, defects and features of the eyes, ears of an unusual size, etc.
Further researchers
In the 1950s, American psychiatrist James A. Brussels developed what turned out to be an incredibly accurate characterization of the man who terrorized New York.
Films were made based on the fictional work of the author Thomas Harris, which attracted the attention of the public to the profession, in particular "Bounty Hunter" (1986) and "Silence of the Lambs" (1991). The fastest development occurred when the FBI opened its training academy - the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) in Quantico, Virginia.
This led to the establishment of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes and the program for the detention of criminals. The idea was to create a system that could reveal the 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 in the wake of a criminal who made a series of serious attacks. He and his colleague coined the term "investigative psychology", tried to approach the subject from what they considered a more scientific point of view.
The essence and prospects
Criminal profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is a process linking the actions of the criminal at the crime scene with his most likely characteristics to help police investigators identify the priority circle of the most likely suspects. Profiling is a relatively new and promising area of forensic psychology, which over the past 20 years has evolved from what used to be called art into rigorous science. Criminal profiling, which is part of the field of forensic psychology called investigative psychology, is based on increasingly rigorous methodological advances and empirical research.