Forensic Psychology

Joanna Adler, Joanna R. Adler

• Publisher: Willan
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135992866
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book brings together a team of experts in the field of forensic psychology to demonstrate the scope of the discipline and the techniques employed in key areas of research, policy and practice. Its aim is to go beyond the introductory texts on the subject to challenge perceptions, to raise questions for research, to pose problems for practice, and to inspire and stimulate, demonstrating the ways in which forensic psychology can aid the practice of criminal justice. It will be essential reading for students, academics and practitioners.

The book is divided into seven sections, addressing key topics with which the discipline is concerned ? its broader context, investigation and prosecution, testimony and evidence, correlates of criminality, persistent offending, intervention and prevention and punishment and corrections. The contributors include both academics and practitioners, and are drawn from the UK, the USA and Australasia.

Section 1

Forensic Psychology in Context

The first two chapters of this book aim to orientate the reader. In Chapter 1, the editor gives us a flavour of some of the historical and current debates in the practice and theoretical development of forensic psychology, in Europe and beyond. The chapter considers some of the key areas of current and future work in forensic psychology within the context of the somewhat parochial nature of definitional problems within the discipline.

In Chapter 2, Jane Wood and Tendayi Viki provide us with a detailed assessment of public attitudes towards crime and punishment. We have a duty of care to the public on whom and for whom we weave our professional practices. In order to protect them properly, we need first to understand them. Of course, we also sometimes seek to change them and their attitudes. Public attitudes and fears about crime and punishment are central to the political debate in this country. They can be played upon by the cynical, can be alleviated where appropriate and at the very least, warrant further exploration and understanding.

Chapter 1

Forensic psychology: concepts, debate and practice

Joanna R. Adler, Middlesex University

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). This definition is based on a literal reading of the word ‘forensic’ but is not that which has been adopted in practice in this country.

Whether the broader or more circumscribed definition is followed, 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). For those practising as forensic psychologists, licensing or statutory registration are relatively recent innovations. The American Psychological Association and the British Psychological Society each have divisions concerned with forensic psychology, that were only fully established within the last 30 years. In England and Wales, Statutory registration for all chartered psychologists, irrespective of type, is still in the legislative process of becoming a reality. At the moment, protection of the British public is largely self regulatory.

Within the British Psychological Society, the Division of Forensic Psychology is also currently engaged in 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 as how best to interpret competency based criteria that were painstakingly drawn up over years of consultation. As the borders come down across the European Union and its membership expands, professions are expected to make welcome their compatriots 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, or be called by interested parties in another State.

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, for example, one may want to impose rigorous experimental control into designs trying to assess exactly how cognitive processes might be operating. 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.

The potential problems with evidence and the reliability of eyewitness testimony is a good case in point. What is common to all factions of the eyewitness reliability disagreements is that they are concerned with producing justice from the criminal courts. To concatenate it somewhat, the people involved differ in terms of their research frame of reference and their preferred means of analyses of data. Whilst a different methodology may sound inconsequential, the net effect can, and has resulted, in polar opposite conclusions and very public differences of opinion as to the best advice to give the courts (Egeth 1993; Loftus 1983a; Loftus 1983b; Loftus 1993; McCloskey and Egeth 1983; McCloskey, Egeth and McKenna 1986). The first round of the debate was conducted largely in 1983, the second in 1993. At the time of writing, this author, for one, is looking forward to seeing if 20 year reappraisals are to be published.

With this emphasis on recent debates and 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 100 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’ uses of evidence that we might now classify as psychological, and/or criminological, goes 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.

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 though, 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 way beyond the confines of the courtroom. By 1916, Terman had revised Binet's 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 was itself 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.

Like the debate regarding eyewitness evidence, 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 foreword to the third edition of the Oxford Handbook of Criminology where there is an acknowledgement that ‘in recent years, psychological approaches to crime have become increasingly prominent in both academic criminology and public policy’ (Maguire, Morgan and Reiner 2002). However, 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.

One area in which forensic psychologists have been active alongside people working in related disciplines is in the ‘what works?’ debate. We have been involved in designing and evaluating programmes targeted at reducing recidivism, often in violent, sexual and or mentally disordered offenders. Alongside that work, much effort has been expended on risk assessments, both in their design and conduct (Bonta, Law, and Hanson 1998; Harris, Rice and Quinsey 1993; Quinsey, Rice and Harris 1995; Sreenivasan, Kirkish, Garrick, Weinberger and Phenix 2000). In England and Wales, as elsewhere, the merits of different sorts of risk assessment are not only a source of contention, but a good example of how psychological tools may be used by legislative authorities. As mentioned above, there is a long history of psycho-legal involvement in dealing with or ‘disposing of’ the mentally or personality disordered offender. At the time of writing, there are long overdue plans to revise the Mental Health Act of 1983. Pre-empting the stalled Mental Health Bill, the Home Office, Prison Service and Department of Health have jointly introduced pilot schemes to manage those the government has deemed to be ‘Dangerous and Severely Personality Disordered’ (DSPD).

DSPD is not a clinical diagnosis. It is a policy inspired label that describes the few mentally disordered people ‘who suffer from a severe personality disorder and because of their disorder, also pose a significant risk of serious harm to others’ (Bell et al. 2003). The DSPD policies are partially a replacement for the uses of the psychopathic label although the two are by no means the same. Aside from the various clinical means of identifying it, psychopathy is also a legal concept, defined within the Mental Health Act of 1983. Within that legislative description is included the notion of persistent and untreatable behaviour. Yet when applied by the criminal justice system, psychopathy could result in an indeterminate stay in a Special Hospital, or high security facility for offenders with serious psychiatric and psychological problems. There is a deeply felt and much argued debate as to whether psychopathic offenders are able to benefit from a stay in such a hospital. Some would say that as they are untreatable, by definition, they should be incarcerated in prison, on the basis of their offending behaviour alone. Others argue that the effects of their personality disorder may be ameliorated under certain sorts of regime and that the therapeutic milieu is helpful in and of itself, particularly if the personality disorder co-presents with other, treatable disorders. It is a debate that touches on fundamentals of psychiatry, psychology and treatment (e.g. Prins 1991 and Szasz 1963). There are also human rights implications as a stay in a Special Hospital is usually indeterminate, often resulting in a longer period of confinement than the normal corresponding period of incarceration in prison. Over recent years, psychopathic offenders have been held in prisons and the Special Hospitals alike. High profile cases, such as the Russell family killings by Michael Stone, highlighted holes in the psychiatric protective net and are strongly associated with the development of the term and policies pertaining to DSPD.

In practice, ‘DSPD might be seen as an attempt to quantify a distinction between the general category of mentally disordered offenders and a more extreme subgroup whose disorder is manifested in the kinds of extreme violence and sexual aggression that have caused most public concern’ (Perkins and Bishopp 2003). To be in this group, an individual must demonstrate a high level of personality disorder, be more likely than not to offend seriously (cause serious physical or psychological harm with significant effects on the victim(s)) and, crucially, there must be a functional link between those two (Bell et al. 2003). Although these policies are already being implemented, there are still major issues of definition and practice to be resolved and legislation that has yet to be brought before the Houses of Parliament. Not only are there questions about how to measure the entry criteria and define someone as DSPD in the first place, but what would be the criteria for successful treatment and release or progression to less secure environments? Perkins and Bishopp (2003) have raised this alongside a useful consideration of the very nature of dangerousness and conceptualisation of both personality and personality disorder. In the same volume, Logan points us to the glaring lack of research pertaining to violent women in general, and potential DSPD women in particular. She concludes that:

… the treatment of women in the same way as men in services for so-called DSPD individuals would seem premature and likely to lead to the involvement of more women in such servi...

Table of contents

• cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Preface
• Section 1 Forensic psychology in context
• Section 2 Investigation and prosecution
• Section 3 Testimony and evidence
• Section 4 Correlates of criminality: sensations and substances
• Section 5 Persistent offending
• Section 6 Intervention and prevention
• Section 7 Punishment and corrections
• Concluding remarks
• Index