Forensic Psychology

Concepts, Debates and Practice

Joanna Adler, Jacqueline Gray, Joanna R. Adler, Jacqueline M Gray

• Publisher: Willan
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781136842313
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Forensic Science
• Index: Law

This book brings together academics, practitioners and experts in the field of forensic psychology to demonstrate the scope of the discipline and push its parameters. Its aim is to go beyond introductory texts to challenge perceptions, to raise questions for research and to pose problems for practice. The editors hope to inspire and stimulate debate about how forensic psychology can aid the practice of justice.

The book is divided into six sections, addressing key topics from the discipline: investigation and prosecution; testimony and evidence; serious and persistent offending; treatment as intervention; intervention and prevention and punishment and corrections. The contributors are drawn from the UK, the USA and Australia.This updated, revised and significantly expanded edition develops the picture of diversity and depth of forensic psychology; considers ways in which the discipline has progressed and identifies challenges for its future sustainability and growth.

• includes a new section on treatment as intervention with contributions on personality disordered offenders; anger control group work with forensic psychiatric inpatients; and developments in treatment for drug misuse offenders
• additional chapters throughout including contributions on UK police interviews; the investigation and prosecutoin of rape; the effect of gender in the courtroom; forensic psychology and terrorism; the aetiology of genocide; self harm in prisons; post-corrections reintegration and many more
• an innovative textbook on forensic psychology exploring application of the subject and setting forensic psychology in a broader context
• demonstrates ways in which forensic psychology can aid the practice of criminal justice

This book will be essential reading for students of forensic psychology and practitioners working in the field.

Chapter 1
Forensic psychology: some concepts and debates about practice

Joanna R. Adler and Jacqueline M. Gray

The first edition of this book was published in 2004. In the past six years, much has stayed the same. There are still fundamental differences in what is meant by ‘forensic psychology’ across jurisdictions; there is still intense interest in the study of forensic psychology or psychology and law among students, and the uses of risk assessment tools are still both pervasive and controversial.

Much though has changed; in Britain, there has been a gradual move towards greater recognition of forensic mental health needs and we are beginning to see greater development of work relating to terrorism prevention. Terrorist incidents of the past 10 years such as those in New York (2001), Bali (2002), Madrid (2004) and London (2005) led to fundamental shifts in legislation, policy and practice. For decades, psychologists had been working alongside academics and practitioners from international relations, social policy and criminology regarding terrorism in multiple domains. However, the massive shift in policy and funding reflected in the European and American anti-terrorism strategies has found us evaluating strategies to prevent violent extremism, understanding terrorist group processes, dealing with hate crimes and working with probation colleagues to manage ‘radical offenders’ as they are released from prison.

In the intervening years, we have also gone from an era of unprecedented spending on forensic psychological and correctional interventions to one of public spending cutbacks. This edition is published at a time of uncertainty and with higher graduate unemployment than any of us would have predicted. Yet in England and Wales, it is also a time when the discipline, indeed psychology as a whole, is recasting itself in the wake of new arrangements whereby the profession has been put onto a statutory footing.

Readers familiar with the first edition may notice some changes. Firstly, one editor has become two. We have worked together on teaching and research for several years and it was both a natural and logical progression for us to edit this second edition together. Secondly, this book is 10 chapters longer than the first edition, yet some of the original chapters are not reflected in this second edition. This indicates both the growth in the discipline and a shift in our thinking about what to prioritise. Those chapters that were included in the first edition have been revised and updated for this collection. In most cases, this involved significant rewriting. However, the authors of Chapters 11 and 12 were so heavily committed to other projects that we have only been able to update the reading lists. More details on each of the chapters and the structure of the book are provided in the Introduction. We are very grateful to all the contributors.

In many parts of the world today, it is possible to find psychology being practised with a forensic twist. Forensic psychologists evaluate offender behaviour programmes, design risk assessments, aid investigative processes, support victims, provide treatment and generally try to facilitate justice. Psychological testimony is now fairly commonplace in the courts themselves. It may be given in cases ranging from the prosecution of war crimes to an adoption hearing. Most people would concur that forensic psychology is a discipline concerned with providing psychological information to people, agencies and systems involved directly, and sometimes indirectly, in the implementation of justice (Dushkind 1984). There are some who define forensic psychology more narrowly, as work provided solely for use by the courts (Gudjonsson and Haward 1998). Yet even these definitions can be used differently. So, for example, in their assessment of American forensic psychology trainee experiences, Morgan et al. (2007) distinguish between correctional and forensic psychology as follows:

correctional psychology is the application of psychological principles to individuals convicted of a crime and sentenced to serve time in a correctional setting (including community corrections), whereas forensic psychology (specifically, criminal forensic psychology for purposes of this article) is the application of psychological principles to individuals charged with a crime but who remain in the judicial process (i.e., have not been convicted of the crime with which they are charged). (Morgan et al. 2007: 96)

The definitional differences partly arise as there are no particular skill sets that definitively separate a forensic psychologist from any other type of psychologist. Rather, it is the context within which we practise and apply our knowledge that makes it forensic (Blackburn 1996). Furthermore, there are increasing roles for other kinds of psychologists within forensic settings so even this definition is limited in utility. For those practising as forensic psychologists, licensing or statutory registration are relatively recent innovations. The American Psychological Association (APA) and the British Psychological Society (BPS) each have divisions concerned with forensic psychology that were only fully established within the past 30 years. In England and Wales, statutory registration for applied psychologists offering services to the public came into force in July 2009.¹

Within the British Psychological Society, the Division of Forensic Psychology is still responsible for nearly all training of forensic psychologists and there has been protracted debate as to how people should best acquire and demonstrate necessary knowledge and skills for full membership. In part, the debate reflects individuals’ very different understandings of what makes a forensic psychologist. In part, it is a debate about how best to interpret competency-based criteria that were painstakingly drawn up over many years of consultation. Unfortunately, this debate has also led to a qualification bottleneck, with trainees lacking clarity, guidance and support from their learned society that is only now beginning to be properly addressed. As the borders come down across the European Union and its membership expands, professions are expected to make welcome their counterparts from elsewhere in the confederation of states. Differences in training, practice and professional expectations have the potential to cause border disputes along the parameters of a discipline and to endanger the public through mismatches in expectations and needs.

Potential problems are clear but the solutions are far from simple. This may be demonstrated by a brief exploration of our transatlantic cousins’ certification procedures. In the USA, board certification is controlled by State not Federal regulations. Firstly, there has arisen something of a divide between ‘legal psychologists’ and ‘forensic psychologists’, with the latter being cast more as practitioners, often with a clinical expertise, and the former as consultants/academics. This is an oversimplification but the labels do matter. Not least, they matter because without appropriate certification from the State concerned, psychologists cannot testify directly to the courts. Thus, an expert from one State with many years’ knowledge and experience, both in research and evidentiary matters, is not necessarily able to give advice to the courts, nor be called by interested parties in another State. In England and Wales, we now have legally binding protection over specific titles such as Registered or Practitioner Psychologist or, indeed, Forensic Psychologist. However, the generic title psychologist is not protected in law.² The qualifications necessary as an expert to provide evidence to the courts are not regulated and largely come down to experience and ability to add something of probative value to the court hearing (British Psychological Society 2009).

Even when evidence can be given to the courts, by the best available people, we do not always agree as to what to say. Nor do we agree about the relative merits of the research studies on which much of the evidence is based. Like other social scientists, forensic psychologists have argued long and hard regarding generalisability and ecological validity of approaches to research and how robust the findings may be, when applied to the ‘real world’. There is lively discussion about when and where laboratory-based research is appropriate and how such findings should be interpreted within the contexts of police practice, court decision-making, and the implementation of justice. It is easy to see why one may want to impose rigorous experimental control into designs trying to assess exactly how cognitive processes might be operating, for example. It is equally easy to see why one might seek to investigate the possibility of improving policy or practice in more realistic settings than the eponymous research cubicle. Without rigorously controlled research designs, alternative explanations for findings will abound, requiring us to equivocate our advice. Yet, if we wish to pass commentary on criminal justice systems, then we need to ensure that our work is going to be as meaningful, and contextually appropriate, as any other piece of applied psychology.

With this emphasis on the problems of self-definition, it would be understandable to think of forensic psychology as a social scientific neophyte. Yet, for as long as psychology has been dealt with as a separate area of endeavour, the enterprise has encompassed the forensic realm. For well over a hundred years, psychological practice and research have been directed at ways of improving the implementation of justice, explaining and minimising criminal behaviour and the ramifications of crime (Gudjonsson 1991). The courts’ use of evidence that we might now classify as psychological and/or criminological go back somewhat further than the turn of the last century. Beccaria and Lombroso had been working on explanations for crime and criminal behaviour for several years before the end of the nineteenth century. Similarly, insanity rules have been a feature of various jurisdictions for generations. A broad-reaching excuse to culpability was introduced to France in 1810. In England, the later, more narrow rules based on the case of Daniel M’Naghten, have been largely unchanged for 150 years, although they have been supplemented, most recently by the Mental Health (Amendments) Act 2007.

The first person generally acknowledged to have written specifically about the use of expert evidence in court is Münsterberg, whose book has become a classic text (Münsterberg 1908). As such, he should be credited with much of the establishment and popularising of the use of psychology in courts. Even at the start of the twentieth century, the use of psychological evidence was not without controversy, and had its detractors (Wigmore 1909). We can also see that, from the start, psychological tools were being utilised to bring about justice beyond the confines of the courtroom. By 1916, Terman had revised Binet and Simon’s intelligence test (Binet and Simon 1905) and was advocating its use in the selection of police and fire officers. He also gathered together studies on potential relationships between criminal behaviour and intelligence, thereby applying psychology to criminal behaviour itself.

Terman wrote at a time when there were related publications and statistics coming from elsewhere in North America and the rest of the world. For example, in Britain, Charles Goring was making similar arguments (Goring 1913). Like Goring, Terman took issue with Lombroso’s conclusions about the physical differences between offenders and the law-abiding, which were themselves derived from Lavater in 1789 and Lauvergne in 1848 (Walsh 2003). Drawing on a series of studies conducted in reformatories, Terman concluded that intelligence tests

have demonstrated, beyond any possibility of doubt, that the most important trait of at least 25 per cent of our criminals is mental weakness. The physical abnormalities which have been found so common among prisoners are not the stigmata of criminality, but the physical accompaniments of feeble-mindedness. They have no diagnostic significance except in so far as they are indications of mental deficiency. Without exception, every study which has been made of the intelligence level of delinquents has furnished convincing testimony as to the close relation existing between mental weakness and moral abnormality. (Terman 1916)

That statement neatly encapsulated one side of an argument regarding criminality, intelligence, moral development and the associated issues of both culpability and treatment that continues to this day.

Differences in opinion regarding intelligence run deep. When taken in conjunction with the difficulties in defining our profession as a distinct group, they help to demonstrate that the forensic field is replete with complex theoretical and practical dimensions. We have, however, managed to make some significant collaborative inroads with other disciplines and in tackling specific problems thrown up by the practices of justice systems and agencies. In much of Europe, the relationship between criminology and psychology has become strengthened in recent years with the growth of ‘effective practice’ initiatives. Applied psychology has generally expanded and given greater credence to sociological theories. Likewise, applied sociological disciplines have been able to consider contributions made by psychology. This can be seen in the increasing prominence of leading psychologists within criminological texts, such as the fourth edition of the Oxford Handbook of Criminology (Maguire et al. 2007).

This is not to claim that all is rosy in our collaborative gardens. If, within disciplines, there is debate as to what constitutes a proper approach and who is the most qualified to conduct work, so it is that outwith the disciplines, we still sometimes strive to show that we have a right to be present at the table. At the American Society of Criminology annual meetings, it is not uncommon for presenters drawing on forensic psychological theory to predicate their work with explanations of and justifications for the very discipline itself, even in symposia clearly marked as being psychological in orientation. Within psychology there is a similar problem with recognition of the value of applied disciplines in general. Within universities, the apparent sidelining of applied psychology in general and forensic psychology in particular has been considered as a manifestation of the progress of academic monitoring and assessments of research value that are directly linked to the monies gained by university departments. So, Brown (2009) argues that the Research Assessment Exercis...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Forensic psychology: some concepts and debates about practice
• Section 1 Investigation and Prosecution
• Section 2 Testimony and Evidence
• Section 3 Serious and Persistent Offending
• Section 4 Treatment as Intervention
• Section 5 Intervention and Prevention
• Section 6 Punishment and Corrections
• Concluding remarks
• Index