Forensic Psychology
Page 5
A fresh theme introduced into this new edition of the book is on working with female offenders (Chapter 20). This group of offenders are often overlooked as only 5% of those in prison are women; hence, women services tend be the Cinderella of the criminal justice system. According to the organisation Women in Prison (website http://www.womeninprison.org), female prisoners come from disturbed backgrounds that need to be taken into account if recidivism is to be reduced. It found that (Women in Prison, n.d.):
46% of women in prison report having suffered domestic violence (including 80% of the clients of Women in Prison)
53% of women in prison report having experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse during childhood
31% of women in prison spent time in local authority care as a child.
HOW TO BECOME A FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST
There is no universal route to a career in forensic psychology, but most countries have at least three requirements: a broad grounding in psychology as a science, typically provided by an honours degree in psychology (academic background); advanced study of forensic psychology (specialised training); and a period of supervised training within a forensic setting (professional practice). Most countries require forensic psychologists to be registered members of a professional organisation, which is there to encourage best practice and ensure adherence to ethical guidelines (see http://www.apadivisions. org/division-41/education/programs/guide.pdf for current US guidelines).
In the UK, students seeking to become forensic psychologists must complete a degree in psychology accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS), which confers the Graduate Basis for Chartership or GBC. Achieving the GBC membership of the BPS demonstrates the breadth and depth of your knowledge of psychology, and a valuable set of subject-specific and transferable skills. If you achieve typically an Upper Second or First Class honours degree, and can demonstrate some relevant forensic experience (perhaps acting as a prison visitor, witness service volunteer or a placement in a forensic setting), you are in a good position to apply for a postgraduate training course.
A number of UK universities offer postgraduate training programmes (at Masters and/or Doctoral levels) in forensic psychology accredited by the British Psychological Society. A Masters’ course is one-year full-time (two years part-time) duration, while a Doctoral course will normally last three years (see www.bps.org.uk/careers-education-training/careers-education-and-training for information on accredited forensic courses in the UK).
On completion of the course, you will need to complete a further two years of supervised practice in a forensic setting4, supervised by a Chartered Psychologist. Satisfactory completion of this stage will allow you to achieve Chartered Psychologist status within the BPS (see: www.bps.org.uk/careers-education-training/society- qualifications/forensic-psychology/qualification-forensic-psychol) and be able to put CPsychol after your name and use the Chartered Psychologist logo. However, if you want to call yourself a forensic psychologist, one of a number of professional titles protected by law, then you will need to register with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC; www.hcpc-uk.org). If you have successfully completed all the earlier steps and kept within ethical guidelines, then there should be no bar to your registration. The HCPC exists to protect the public by ensuring the fitness to practise of those on its registers. It does not play a role in facilitating the development or promotion of the professions that it regulates; this latter role in undertaken by the British Psychological Society.
Achieving professional standing in forensic psychology in the UK is a long and rigorous process taking a minimum of six years, but no more so than in most other developed countries. Details vary, but Australia and Canada have broadly similar training requirements and require the same pattern of separate academic and professional accreditation. In the United States, academic training in forensic psychology is taken to Doctoral level, with a further two years of supervised internship before the candidate is eligible for Diploma status, which is only granted after a lengthy oral examination. However, professional life is rewarding in all senses: the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) estimates the lifetime economic benefit associated with holding professional qualifications and membership of a professional institute at £152,000.
PROFESSIONAL ORGANISATIONS FOR FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGISTS
The Division of Forensic Psychology (DFP) of The British Psychological Society (http://www.bps.org.uk/networks-and-communities/member-microsite/division -forensic-psychology) was founded in 1977 as the Division of Criminological and Legal Psychology, and renamed the Division of Forensic Psychology in 1999. The division represents the interests of those psychologists who work in criminal and civil justice systems. Division membership includes forensic psychologists working in academic settings, prison services, health, education and social services. Members must first qualify to join the BPS prior to applying for the DFP, which has grades of membership. Full membership requires completion of both academic training and supervised practice (see above), but interested graduates in psychology may become general members. The official journal of the DFP is Legal and Criminological Psychology. The Division runs a trainee forum on which trainees are encouraged to post comments and queries (http://www.bps.org.uk/networks-and-communities/member-microsite/division-forensic-psychology/trainees).
The European Association of Psychology and Law (EAPL) was formed in 1992 and is the principal European organisation for psychologists and lawyers who work at the interface of the two disciplines. The Association aims to promote and develop research, and hosts regular conferences in different parts of Europe, the proceedings of which are regularly published. Membership is open to all professionals with a qualification in psychology, law, or a related discipline such as criminology or psychiatry. Full membership requires a university-level qualification or equivalent professional experience, but students and those without formal qualifications may join as affiliates. The Association boasts a lively student section. The Association’s website can be found at: https://eapl.eu/about
The American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS), Division 41 of the American Psychological Association (APA), is an interdisciplinary organisation devoted to scholarship, practice and public service in psychology and law. Members of AP-LS need not be members of APA, although many members belong to both organisations. Recent activities have included collecting course syllabi and teaching materials, surveying career opportunities in psychology and law and formulating a response to the Hoffman Report concerning alleged involvement of APA members in the use of torture on Iraqi prisoners. AP-LS sponsors a Science Policy Forum and holds regular meetings, often under the auspices of the APA. Membership is open to interested professionals and students in other disciplines beyond psychology. The official journal of the Division is Law and Human Behavior and its website can be found at: http://www.ap-ls.org
A number of organisations for applied psychologists include a large membership of forensic psychologists. The Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition (SARMAC) was founded in 1994 and includes many researchers interested in psychology and law. It holds regular conferences, invariably with sessions devoted to legal themes and its membership is open to graduate and undergraduate students in psychology or related disciplines; other interested persons can join as affiliates. For many years, the Society’s official journal was Applied Cognitive Psychology (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-0720). In 2012, the Society launched its own journal: Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. The Society’s website can be found at: http://www.sarmac.org/society.html
The National Organisation for the Treatment of Abusers (NOTA) (http://www. nota.co.uk) and the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) (http://www.atsa.com), are the UK and US organisations, respectively, for the treatment of sexual offenders, and typically have a number of forensic psychologists as members who assess/treat sexual offenders. Their associated journals are the Journal of Sexual Aggression and Sexu
al Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment.
BOX 1 USEFUL WEBSITES RELATED TO FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY
Listed here are a few useful websites that will be helpful to a forensic (or potential forensic) psychologist:
Division of Forensic Psychology, The British Psychological Society: http://www.bps.org.uk/networks-and- communities/member-microsite/division- forensic-psychology
Centre for Forensic and Criminological Psychology, University of Birmingham, contains useful links to our work in Birmingham: http://cfcp.bham.ac.uk/main.php
Correctional Services Of Canada is a useful website with a number of useful resources: http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca
The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies: https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk
FBI website: https://www.fbi.gov
Home Office (this is the main site; the Research and Statistics pages are probably the most useful but there is also a range of crime-related information in other sections): https://www.gov. uk/government/organisations/home- office
Ministry of Justice website, which is useful for information about courts, criminal cases, probation and prison matters: https://www.justice.gov.uk
NHS Careers describes forensic careers within the NHS: https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk
Guardian crime reports: https://www.theguardian.com/society/crime andpunishment/page/0,,713466,00.html
Weblinks to various sites relating to forensic psychology and law: http://www.oklahoma.net/~jnichols/forensic.html
For jobs in the Prison Service see: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-prison-service/about/recruitment
Useful forensic psychology resources can be found at: http://libguides.bolton.ac.uk/c.php?g=528639&p=3615417
STRUCTURE AND CONTENT OF THIS BOOK
This text attempts to introduce students to the core areas of forensic psychology. It is divided into four parts, each devoted to a different facet of the discipline, and attempts to explore the unfolding of criminal behaviour from causes to the treatment of offenders:
Part 1: The Causes of Crime
In Chapter 1, Emma Palmer examines the principal social and psychological theories that have been proposed to explain criminal behaviour, focussing, in particular, on the links between crime, mental illness, learning disability, and personality disorder. In Chapter 2, David Farrington and Maria Ttofi examine the developmental origins of crime: which youngsters are particularly likely to become criminals as adults by reason of their family background and early experiences? Steven Gillespie and Ian Mitchell explore the concept of psychopathy in Chapter 3, in terms of personality, genetics and environmental factors, social and emotional factors, and neurobiological insights. In Chapter 4, Anthony Beech, Benjamin Nordstrom, Adrian Raine and Dawn Fisher consider the risk factors that can cause individuals to be predisposed to a life of crime. In Chapter 5, Catherine Hamilton Giachritsis and Emma Sleath shift the perspective towards the impact of crime on the lives of its victims, highlighting recent research that aims to identify factors in adults and children that will promote resilience in the face of crime.
Part 2: Investigating Crime
Despite dazzling advances in high-tech police science (“the CSI effect”), most investigations still begin with and are resolved by, witness statements. In Chapter 6, Harriet Smith, Hannah Ryder and Heather Flowe describe the different stages of memory and how these relate to what witnesses can or cannot remember about events. Allison Mugno, Lindsay Malloy and David La Rooy (Chapter 7) continue to develop these themes, with special reference to interview techniques developed by psychologists to enable investigators to elicit the maximum amount of useful information from witnesses with the minimum of error. Erik Mac Giolla and Pär Anders Granhag (Chapter 8) switch the emphasis to the ethical interviewing of suspects in ways most likely to lead to obtaining reliable information that will assist in solving a case. Suspects often lie at interview and in Chapter 9, Pär Anders Granhag and Maria Hartwig review recent approaches to detecting lies and deception in police interviews.
In recent years, three high-profile areas of policing and detection have become associated with forensic psychology. In Chapter 10, Jessica Woodhams and Matthew Tonkin consider the reality of crime analysis and offender profiling and the use of behavioural and crime scene evidence to pinpoint serial offenders. Stalking is another crime that fascinates the media and in Chapter 11, Louise Dixon and Erica Bowen locate the mundane reality of most stalking as a feature of intimate partner violence; they describe the scope and variety of such violence and consider the implications for the assessment of risk of repetition. Terrorism, too, is never too far from the news pages and Max Taylor, in Chapter 12, examines the process by which individuals become, remain and equally importantly, disengage from terrorism.
Part 3: The Trial Process
In Chapter 13, Jacqueline Wheatcroft examines the psychological processes that can influence decision-making in the courtroom, including the impact of different styles of questioning by advocates, pre-trial publicity and judicial pronouncements, and reviews findings on how judges and juries reach decisions on guilt or innocence. The examination of evidence in court can cause witnesses undue stress, particularly when they are vulnerable, by reason of age or impairments. In Chapter 14, Graham Davies and Helen Westcott describe witnesses’ concerns and fears of the legal process and how these have been addressed through innovations in procedure and practice. Some types of evidence continue to cause particular concern to judges and advocates alike. In Chapter 15, Tim Valentine looks at the reliability of identification evidence and the impact of new methods driven by psychological research, designed to make the practice more reliable. Finally in this section, in Chapter 16, Daniel Wilcox and Leam Craig consider the challenging role of the psychologist as an expert witness in civil and criminal cases.
Part 4: Dealing with Offenders
James McGuire in Chapter 17 examines the critical issue of sentencing, and examines the impact of different regimes of punishment and rehabilitation on the likelihood of reoffending. In Chapter 18, Ruth Hatcher looks at modern treatment regimes for offenders and the important issue of risk assessment, which will determine when an offender can safely be released once again onto our streets. A group of offenders who cause particular concern to the public are those found guilty of offences involving violent or sexual crimes. In Chapter 19, Leigh Harkins, Jayson Ware and Ruth Mann review the most effective treatment regimes for such offenders and their impact on the prevention or reduction of future harm for others. Women make up just 5% of the total prisoner population but account for nearly half of all cases of injury and self-harm reported in UK prisons. Now attention is being finally directed toward the problem and in Chapter 20, Franca Cortoni and Nathalie Fontaine consider how female offenders should be treated, and what methods are most likely to lead to their rehabilitation. Offenders with intellectual impairments are disproportionately represented in the prison population. In Chapter 21, William Lindsey, John Taylor and Amanda Michie consider how interventions can best be tailored to their special needs to reduce the risk of future offending. Mentally disordered offenders are also significantly over-represented in prisons and in Chapter 22, Dawn Fisher, Michelle Ginty, Jagjit Sandhu and Nuwan Galappathie consider the emerging speciality of forensic mental health and the different treatment regimes and risk assessment procedures it has encouraged. Finally, in the concluding chapter of the book (Chapter 23), Tony Ward and Gwenda Willis look beyond punishment and retribution toward rehabilitation and the promotion of better, more productive lives for past offenders.
ANNOTATED READING LIST
We suggest the following books would form the basis for a useful set of references to the field of forensic psychology.
Adler, J., & Gray, J. (Eds.) (2010). Forensic psychology: Concepts, debates and practice (2nd ed.). Cullompton, Devon: Willan Publishing. A useful and up-to-date set of reviews of contemporary issues in forensic psychology, written by leading researchers.
Andrews, D., & Bon
ta, J. (2010). The psychology of criminal conduct, fifth edition. New Providence, NJ: LexisNexus. The latest edition of the seminal work on “what works” in offender rehabilitation by two of its main proponents.
Blackburn, R. (2001). The psychology of criminal conduct (2nd ed.). Chichester: Wiley. An updated version of one of the seminal books in forensic psychology.
Brown, J., & Campbell, E. (Eds.) (2010). The Cambridge handbook of forensic psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Useful synopsis of many topics in forensic psychology.
Browne, K. D., Beech, A. R., & Craig, L. A. (Eds.). (2012). Handbook of forensic psychology practice. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. This book gives an up-to-date account of the issues when working with offenders.
Bull, R. & Carson, C. (Eds.). (2003). Handbook of psychology in legal contexts, (2nd ed.). Chichester: Wiley. A comprehensive review of the contribution of psychology from a legal perspective, including both civil and criminal contexts.
Flannery, D. J., Vazsonyi, A. T., & Waldman, I. D. (2007). Cambridge handbook of violent behavior and aggression. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Useful reference book regarding violent and aggressive behaviour.
Gudjonsson, G. H. (2003). The psychology of interrogations and confessions: A handbook. Chichester: Wiley. Review of theories of suggestibility and cases of false confessions by the pioneer of the field.