Forensic Psychology



Forensic Psychology

Abstract

Forensic Psychology is the branch of Psychology which is used in the criminal justice structure. In this field, the psychologists apply their capabilities to interpret law in the pertinent jurisdiction. Murder and serial murder are the examples of high profile cases, in which forensic psychology is often applied for investigation purposes. This paper discusses the forensic psychology, its applications to the criminal justice process and psychological methods used for criminal evaluation.

Short History of Forensic Psychology

The area of forensic psychology was begun to use in the turn of the 20th century. The brain behind forensic psychology was William Stern who used to deliver the lectures on forensic psychology in 1901. During his lectures, Stern frequently asked his students to closely examine the pictures and conclude that what was happening when the picture was taken. After the students' completion of exercises, Stern himself used to take a look at the pictures and ask the students about what they saw in those pictures. Stern basically used these analyses to determine the credibility of the observations, which a forensic psychologist can present against or in favor of the criminal, during the formal court investigations. However, these experiments resulted in the false information, and Stern concluded that it is not credible or worth trust to recall the memories. For example, when Stern asked that whether or not a person was holding a gun in the picture, the students answered yes, while actually such person was not there in the picture. During that time, similar questions were asked during the police interrogations, and Stern proved that asking such questions was not credible, as human memory is not reliable.

In 1908, Hugo published his first book with the thoughts of forensic psychology. The focus of this book was the patients who had mental illnesses. Hugo argued in his book that eye witnesses can be objected for many reasons. The book discussed the illusions, the credibility of the information collected from eye witnesses and the methods to prevent crime. The results of Hugo's study again showed that eye witnesses could only provide correct information about the crime scene, when the crime scene was fresh in their memories. However, as the days passed after the crime scene, the eye witnesses failed to provide accurate information. On the basis of all these findings, Hue argued that people cannot even provide specific details of the event, even when it is fresh in their memories; then how they could be expected to provide the details about crime event, after a period of months.

In 1916, Psychology was started to be applied for the law enforcement by Lewis Terman. He used the experiments of previous Psychologists for assessing the intelligence of police and fire fighters. The applications of forensic psychology then continued to grow during the periods of 1920 to 1930, and still is a growing field.

Qualifying as a Forensic Psychologist

Forensic Psychology incorporates both the civil and criminal laws. In order to qualify for the position of forensic psychologist, ...