Forensic Psychology in Context

Nordic and International Approaches

P.A. Granhag, P.A. Granhag

• Publisher: Willan
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351566889
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Jura
• Subtopic: Forensik

Academics and researchers from the Nordic countries (Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Finland) have made a particularly strong contribution internationally to the rapidly developing disciplines of forensic and legal psychology. This book brings together the leading authorities in the field to look systematically at the central issues and concerns of their subject, looking at both investigative psychology and psychology in court.

Forensic Psychology in Context reflects the results of research in the Nordic countries themselves, but each chapter situates this work within a broader comparative and international context. The book is a major contribution to the subject, and will be essential reading for anybody with interests in this field.

Part 1
Nordic light on forensic psychology

Chapter 1

Forensic psychology in a Nordic context

Pär Anders Granhag

Casting a Nordic light on forensic psychology – why and how?

Forensic (legal) psychology is one of the most rapidly growing subfields of psychology. There is a steady and high publication rate of textbooks, new specialised scientific journals are launched and university courses on ‘psychology and law’ are increasingly popular. Adding to this, the media are often keen to mirror the latest developments in the field. Furthermore, and importantly, there are some signs indicating that policy-makers and practitioners working within the legal arena are becoming more open to the application of psycho-legal research. This latter development is, however, still slow.

This rapid development is mainly positive, but also calls for reflection. A number of questions are raised, for example: To what extent do the questions addressed by today’s researchers mirror the concrete problems that practitioners have to tackle? To what extent are the findings emerging from research programmes designed with one particular legal system (procedure) in mind informative also for different legal systems (procedures)? That is, how do we translate research findings across different investigative or legal procedures? It is true that science should be global – not local – but it is equally true that scientific findings need to be contextualised and situated in order to be applicable and make a difference. In order to conduct meaningful applied psychological research one needs to know about the structure, frequency and consequences of real-world problems; if not, one runs the risk of producing solutions desperately seeking their problems. The overarching goal for the present volume is to cast a Nordic light on forensic psychology. Below we will sort out why we consider this task important, as well as how we went about achieving this goal. But before this, a few words on definition and on some of the trademarks characterising research on forensic (legal) psychology are warranted.

For the present volume we think it suffices to say that forensic (legal) psychology is mainly occupied with: (1) conducting psychological research in order to gain scientific knowledge relevant for the legal system; and (2) the implementation and application of such knowledge (for a detailed discussion on different definitions see Ogloff, 2002). To further illuminate what forensic (legal) psychology is about it might help to reflect on the objects under examination. Simply put, it is possible to identify two main objects of study: (1) the actors within the legal arena (e.g. police officers, judges, victims and eyewitnesses); and (2) the procedures, techniques and tests used by legal practitioners (e.g. interview techniques and methods for assessing reliability). The distinction between different objects of study makes it, in turn, possible to chisel out two major lines of psycho-legal research. The first line is to a large extent descriptive and aims at describing different ‘states of the (legal) world’. Two examples of questions emerging from this line of research are: (1) how well do witnesses remember emotional events; and (2) which biases are legal fact-finders exposed to when assessing the strength of the evidence in court? The second line of research is to a large extent normative in its nature and can be said to have two major aims: to provide ‘prescriptions’ for legal practitioners (e.g. ‘the best way to interview a witness is to . . .’), or to warn against faulty practice (e.g. ‘interrogation tactics like “maximisation” and “minimisation” might increase the risk of false confessions’). Two examples of questions illustrating this second line of research are: (1) how effective is the cognitive interview when used for children; and (2) how should a line-up be administered in order to satisfy the most central criteria of objectivity?

By casting a Nordic light on legal psychology we hope to achieve two things. First, it is a unique opportunity to highlight forensic psychology research conducted within the Nordic region (and, one may assume, such research is particularly relevant for a Nordic context). Second, adopting a Nordic perspective there is reason to carefully consider and select international research with a bearing on the Nordic legal system. From our viewpoint it is an easy task to argue why such a Nordic light may illuminate something important. In essence, the Nordic region is characterised by a rather unique legal system, and it therefore makes sense to put psycho-legal research in context (for a detailed account on the Nordic legal system, see Chapter 2).

To agree that contextualising forensic psychology might be a worthwhile project is something very different to finding ways of how to achieve such a goal. The first and most important initiative taken was to gather the best possible team of Nordic researchers and have each of them agree to write about his or her area of expertise. We challenged this experienced team of researchers further by asking them to keep the Nordic legal system close in mind when piecing together their chapters, and (1) to pay special attention to research conducted within the Nordic region (as long as this research was relevant to the Nordic legal system), (2) to acknowledge those parts of the international psycho-legal research that are of clear and immediate relevance to the Nordic legal system and (3) to highlight Nordic legal cases which illustrate the application of, or the urgent need for, psycho-legal knowledge. Needless to say, this volume would not have materialised had not this prominent team of Nordic researchers, as well as their international collaborators, taken on these challenges.

A quick look over the shoulder

It is beyond the scope of this chapter to offer a full account of the historical developments of Nordic forensic psychology. It would, however, been deeply unfair not to mention a number of Nordic scholars who made very early contributions to this field of research. At the very dawn of forensic psychology we find the Swedish psychologist Sydney Alrutz who published several papers on eyewitness testimony. In one of these papers, dating back to 1912, ‘Vittnespsykologi och vittnesmål’ [‘Witness psychology and witness statements’] Alrutz was able to foreshadow many of the issues occupying current scholars within the field. In Norway we find Anathon Aall who, from his position as a professor of philosophy, made important contributions to psychologically inspired memory research between 1910 and 1930, and thereby prepared the terrain for the application of such research (Teigen, 2006). Gudmundur Finnbogason, who was a professor of psychology at the University of Iceland (1918–24), was probably the first to lecture on forensic psychology in Iceland (i.e. witness psychology and criminal psychology). During the years before 1918 there was a debate in the Icelandic Parliament regarding the professorship of psychology and one of the MPs used the following question as an argument for establishing the professorship: ‘How can a judge evaluate people’s offences or the value of witness testimony without psychology or to judge if a man is innocent or guilty?’ (Sigurdsson and Gudjonsson, 2009).

The period between the two world wars was not without activity with respect to forensic psychology. In 1925 the Swedish criminologist Andreas Bjerre published his opus Bidrag till mordets psykologi, a fascinating volume which was translated into both German (Zur Psychologie des mordes: Kriminalpsychologische studien, 1925) and English (The Psychology of Murder: A Study in Criminal Psychology, 1927). In Norway the lawyer Kjerschow in 1931 published the book Hvilken tillit kan man ha til de menneskelige utsagn? [To What Extent Can We Trust the Human Statement?]. Only a few years later (1934) Harald Schjelderup, the first professor of psychology in Norway, published an interesting essay on eyewitness testimony, Erindringsfeil og vidneprov med saerlig henblikk på sedlighetssaker [Memory Errors and Witness Statements with a Special Focus on Abuse Cases]. As recognised by Svein Magnussen (2004), Schjelderup was able to pinpoint a number of the more pertinent issues within this field. Yet another example of such interwar activity is the book Vidneudsagnets upaalidelighet [The Unreliability of Witness Statements], which was published by Poul Bahnsen in 1936, a true pioneer within Danish applied psychology. In addition, in 1933 the Swedish lawyer Arvid Wachtmeister published Vad är sanning? Vittnespsykologins grunddrag [What Is True? The Basics of Witness Psychology]. This list of early publications (which could have been made longer) proves that there was indeed a high level of activity within the Nordic region already before the Second World War with respect to forensic psychology. This list also makes evident that the main issue driving these early examinations was the malleable nature of human memory.

The years following the Second World War were very slow in terms of forensic psychology. An exception is to be found in Stockholm (Sweden), where Valdemar Fellenius – an important name for Swedish applied psychology – published several papers on witness psychology, for example ‘Vittnesutsagans psykologi’ from 1952 [‘The psychology of the witness statement’]. The group of professionals that Fellenius had in mind for his publications was police officers in training. The true pioneer for Swedish (and Nordic) witness psychology was, however, Arne Trankell, who between 1950 and 1980 developed a tool for analysing the reliability of statements (for more on this, see Chapter 15 in the current volume). Trankell was influenced by, and also influenced, German psychologists working on the issue of statement analysis (among them Udo Undeutsch). Trankell published a number of books, for example Vittnespsykologins arbetsmetoder (1963) [Methods in Witness Psychology] and Reliability of Evidence: Methods for Analyzing and Assessing Statements (1972). Trankell also played an active role in the two early national conferences that were held in Stockholm (1963) and in Lund (1964), where Swedish lawyers and psychologists came together to discuss different topics of eyewitness testimony, credibility and evidence (Trankell, 1965). This emerging interest with respect to forensic psychology could also be seen in Finland and Iceland. Specifically, a milestone in the development of forensic psychology in Iceland was a paper on ‘witness testimony’ published in 1961 by Símon Jóhannes Ágústsson in the Law Student Journal (Sigurdsson and Gudjonsson, 2009). In Finland, at the end of the 1960s, several psychologists applied psychological knowledge in prisons in association with the forensic psychiatric assessments and treatment of prisoners.

It is also worth highlighting that Arne Trankell was the organising head of one of the first international conferences on legal psychology that was held in 1981: The Stockholm Symposium on Witness Psychology. Many of the participants in this ground-breaking symposium are now world-leading scholars within the field of forensic (legal) psychology, for example Elizabeth Loftus (USA), Ray Bull and Graham Davies (UK), Max Steller and Udo Undeutsch (Germany) and Gisli Gudjonsson (Iceland and UK). Trankell also edited the proceedings published on the basis of this symposium, Reconstructing the Past: The Role of Psychologists in Criminal Trials (Trankell, 1982). One of the participants at the Stockholm symposium was Eva Smith from Denmark, who a few years later defended her PhD on the theme of ‘witness evidence’ at the University of Copenhagen (Vidnesbeviset: En vurdering af avhoringsmetoder og vidneforklaringer, 1986). It should be noted that in terms of modern research in forensic psychology there was also early activity in Iceland. By around 1980 Gisli Gudjonsson and Hannes Petursson (Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Iceland) had already started to collaborate, and this collaboration has made Icelandic forensic psychology flourish ever since. It is also interesting to note that Finland was a Nordic forerunner in terms of legal psychology courses at the university level; in 1990 such a course was initiated by docent Jaana Haapasalo at the Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä (Finland). All in all one can firmly conclude that scholars in the Nordic region actively took part in the forming of modern forensic psychology.

A note on the current situation

Although forensic (legal) psychology has developed steadily since the mid-1970s, and even rapidly so since the early 1990s, the field is still relatively small. It is, however, possible to note that the field’s contour has begun to sharpen, and that the lines of demarcation with respect to neighbouring disciplines like forensic psychiatry and criminology are becoming somewhat clearer. Contributing to this is of course the by now established societies for psychology and law research, and all the specialised scientific journals that have started during the last 20 years. Another factor contributing to this development is that much of modern forensic psychology research is organised in research units. Many of the pioneers of modern forensic psychology are still very active, but much of today’s work is done within established research groups. This is true for North American research (where there are a number of very strong groups) as well as for European research (see for example the strong forensic psychology groups in Maastricht, Portsmouth and Kiel). The very same development is found in the Nordic region; one can now find forensic research groups at or above a ‘critical mass’ figure in Finland (Turku), Norway (Oslo), Iceland (Reykjavik) and Sweden (Gothenburg and Stockholm). Yet another factor contributing to the development of the field is the fact that these research groups are coming together in larger organised networks. In the Nordic region such a network was constituted in 2004: The Nordic Network for Research on Psychology and Law (NNPL).

The NNPL is a non-profit network open to all researchers within the field of psychology and law, but has had a special focus on the research activities taking place in the Nordic region. Some of the main goals of the NNPL are: (1) to stimulate and strengthen research on psychology and law within the Nordic region; (2) to hold annual scientific meetings at which students and senior scholars come together to present and discuss their research; (3) to initiate and stimulate collaboration between research groups within the network; and (4) to pool resources in order to initiate joint Nordic PhD courses. Since the network was started up in 2004, the NNPL has arranged six scientific meetings and three joint Nordic PhD courses in Legal and Investigative Psychology (see, http://www.nnpl.net). It is fair to say that the network has been rather successful so far in achieving some of its main goals. Most of the authors contributing to the present volume have also been very active in the NNPL.

Taking stock of the more established forensic research groups within the Nordic region, one can note that the groups converge on one feature: they all run projects on children in the legal process. The many projects may differ with respect to the main issue under examination, but they all share the same principle objective: to strengt...