Forensic Psychology: Relevance in Application

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Table of Contents

Introduction
History of forensic psychology
Application of forensic psychology
Overestimation of eyewitness’ memories
Summary
Conclusion
References

Introduction

The word “forensic” comes from the Latin word “forensics,” meaning “of the forum,” where the law courts of ancient Rome were held. The AFP website defines forensic psychology as the “application of the science and profession of psychology to questions and issues relating to law and the legal system”. In the modern-day context, the word ‘forensic’ refers to the application of scientific knowledge to the realm of crime. A broad definition of forensic psychology used by schools such as John Jay College is that forensic psychology is “the development and application of psychological principles to the problems and administration of legal, judicial, correctional, and law enforcement systems; rooted in the discipline of psychology and its subfields, but also interdisciplinary in nature, drawing on diverse disciplines such as the law, sociology, political science, anthropology, philosophy, medicine, and linguistics.” (John Jay College website, 2005).

History of forensic psychology

Forensic psychology, dealing with psychological applications to law and offenders, can be traced at least to the nineteenth century (Bartol & Bartol, 1999). One of the earliest books in forensic psychology was written by Munsterberg (1908) of Harvard University. In this book, Munsterberg argued, that eyewitness testimony is often unreliable, a point that was well taken in light of much recent research. Munsterberg’s project faced resistance from lawyers and other legal professionals. His efforts however bore fruit as Harvard became a center for legal and criminal psychology. Several of Munsterberg’s students such as Marston developed a ‘lie detector test’ (Marston, 1917) and emerged as pioneers and leaders in what was to become forensic psychology. In the United States, the first psychological experiment on the psychology of testimony was conducted by J. McKeen Cattell of Columbia University. The insanity defense was introduced in England, to the case of Daniel M’Naghten in 1843, who shot and killed the secretary of the prime minister. This test came to be known as the M’Naghten test for insanity and was used in many countries, including the U.S., till 1962. One of the earliest American forensic psychologists was William Healy who in 1909, helped form the Juvenile Psychopathic Institute. He wrote the path-breaking book titled “Pathological Lying, Accusation, and Swindling”. Some of the others who made a mark in the development of this branch of psychology include the mental testers of the 1912-1917 period, the polygraph pioneers of the 1920s, personality theorists such as Hans Eysenck (1916-1997), Hans Toch, founder of the SUNY-Albany school of criminal justice in the late 1960s, and the John Jay College of criminal justice which has introduced doctoral education in this field.

Application of forensic psychology

Forensic psychologists collect information about a case through research about a particular issue. The psychologist will review the information, critique it from a scientific perspective and pass it on to the legal community in written or oral form (Walker & Shapiro, 2003). Sometimes, the psychologist helps the attorney to formulate questions during trial or deposition. Clinical forensic psychologists use clinical interviews, standardized test data, and other assessment techniques to learn about the individual (Walker and Shapiro, 2003). They may diagnose mental or physical illness or trauma from rape, etc. It is common for forensic psychologists to study other medical and psychological reports about the person’s current and prior history. Forensic psychologists work in many settings. They may have a clinical therapy practice along with forensic practice or they may be hired by an attorney or other agencies to deal with specific cases or to offer general assistance (Walker & Shapiro, 2003). Contemporary forensic psychology has three main divisions: rehabilitation of offenders, consultation of various forms with the police, and research and consultation on legal issues and processes (Hess, 1999). Of these three areas, the realm of rehabilitation of offenders has developed dramatically over the past half-century especially in Western Europe and Canada. Forensic psychologists should know – criminal behavior, the law, the criminal justice system, and the contributions of applied psychology to the criminal justice system in the context of investigative, trial, custodial, and treatment processes (Horley, 2000). “A sound understanding of forensic psychology in practice includes assessment, processes of investigation, prosecution and defense, decision-making in terms of innocence, guilt sentencing, custody, treatment and rehabilitation, professional criteria for report production and giving of testimony, and extensive practical experience in engaging in at least one area of forensic psychology” – (Bayne & Horton, 2003).

In the context of the assessment and treatment of offenders, it is interesting to note that much of the clinical work with offenders involve biomedical perspectives. The biomedical model is highly controversial because it holds individuals responsible for their actions when their actions are mainly due to inherent neuroticism. Moreover, the model does not offer any kind of hope for change in a ‘diagnosis’ of pedophilia or antisocial personality disorder, although there is in reality, faint hope of treating the presumed disease. The model has another limitation in the field of ‘symptom management. It does not address underlying reasons for offensive acts. Rather, the model limits itself to the use of modern psychiatric medications to contain the aggression of offenders. The 1960s saw the emergence of an explanation for violent crime in terms of an individual, identifiable genetic abnormality—the XYY syndrome, created by the presence of an extra Y chromosome in males. This theory suggested that XYY males had a disproportionate inclination to violent offenses (Horley, 2003). Psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theories revolved around the role of inner processes and conflicts as determinants of criminal behavior. Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation held that separation and rejection from and by the mother account for most of the more intractable cases of delinquency (Bowlby, 1951). A social learning approach to crime suggests that observational learning takes place primarily in three contexts: in the family, in the prevalent subculture, and through cultural symbols such as television and books which form part of the social environment (Bandura, 1976). Learning theories emphasize the uniqueness of each individual and traditional learning theories have concentrated upon the acquisition of criminal behavior through reinforcement and modeling. Eysenck’s theory of crime is a control theory that suggests that three dimensions of personality may be associated with a crime: extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism. It takes into account genetic, social, and individual factors. While learning theories, behavioral theories, and control theories were useful to a certain extent to explain offending behavior, they could not explain the variety of offensive acts. Many forensic clinicians have championed a cognitive-behavioral alternative (Horley, 2003). Cognitive-behavioral theories in particular have been found useful in the treatment of offenders. They include rationalistic theories (Ellis, 1962) to constructivist (Kelly, 1955), and they can even include some social learning theories (Bandura, 1986).

Constructivist theories emphasize personal meaning, language, and experience. According to the constructivist theory, it is important to understand how the client construes his or her world is important. This is also termed as the world view or life philosophy approach (Hollin, 1989). It is important to know the life philosophy of the client before deciding on a means of successful intervention, to alter the client’s perspective. The constructivist theory that has been used and promoted by several forensic clinicians (Houston, 1998) is the personal construct theory (PCT). Since its development by Kelly (1955), PCT has offered a unified psychological theory, personality assessment techniques, and clinical interventions to psychologists in various areas of practice. In the case of forensic psychology, the clients are often murderers or other violent offenders and it is very difficult for the psychologist to adopt a credulous attitude. There may be an increasing degree of threat as the initial fleeting visions of the world seen through the client’s eyes develop into a clearer vision. On the other hand, attempting to understand the offender may in a subtle manner require acknowledgment by others of one’s potential criminal tendencies. Brady (2001, p. 72) says that in the case of forensic psychiatrists, “loudly proclaiming that they have some special psychological insight into the criminal mind may be seen as an inadvertent admission that they possess more criminal traits and characteristics than average”. Try to understand criminals rather than focusing on punishing them can be seen as a very revolting trait in the public eye. From the perspective of Landfield’s (1954) exemplification hypothesis of threat, “people are threatened by evildoers”. In the case of criminal offenders, Kelly suggests that such a threat may be alleviated by adopting a more punitive attitude towards the evildoer. It has been found that tight “cognitively simple’ construing may be associated with greater possibilities of committing violent offenses, whereas the offenses of cognitively complex prisoners are fraudulent. Research findings show that people, who are cognitively simple or tight construers, may not be able to anticipate the construing and behavior of others, may not be able to integrate conflicting information about others, and may lack the communicational ability (Winter, 1993). When a tight construer is faced with one who behaves in a way that is inconsistent with his or her anticipations, he may feel threatened by the invalidation with which they are confronted. For such a person, violence may be the only way to remove the source of threat (Winter, 1993).

Sexual offenders are those who commit sexually deviant or anomalous acts ranging from indecent behavior such as exposing private parts in public to more serious offenses like rape. Even indecent behavior can cause lasting trauma (Horley, 2003). Most of the sexual offenders are male. However, they are not homogeneous. Especially subgroups of sex offenders such as child molesters are very heterogeneous (Prentky and Knight, 1991). As a result, there are no generally accepted theories of sexual abuse. Most clinicians who work with sexual offenders today adopt a cognitive-behavioral approach (Houston, Thomson and Wrag, 2944) that includes everything from rational-emotive therapy (Ellis, 1962) to social learning theory (Bandura, 1982) among others. However personal construct theory offers a viable theoretical basis for understanding sexual function and dysfunction. The work of a forensic psychologist in the case of sexual offenders is to evaluate the offender, and submit a report specifically indicating whether there is evidence of repetitive and compulsive sexual behavior. They must also make treatment recommendations and present a prognosis regarding future criminal sexual behavior.

There is no generally accepted theory of child molestation. Freud noted that sexual abuse of children occurs frequently among school teachers and pupils. He concluded rather weakly that sexual impulses cannot be easily controlled by the mind. However, Fraser (1976) has put forth an account of child sexual abuse from a Freudian perspective. Fraser described child molesters as the result of a dominant yet distant mother and an absent, weak, or ‘despised’ father. The unresolved Oedipal strivings of a young male in such a family produce a narcissistic inversion in which the individual as he ages ‘remains deeply in love with the child he was then’ (p. 20). Fraser also relates homosexuality to child sexual abuse. But then, he fails to explain adequately the case when adult males molest young females. The most popular theory to explain child abuse until recently is the social learning theory. According to the social learning perspective, children can be exposed to models and experience some early arousal to abnormal stimuli which, when combined with inappropriate masturbatory fantasies during the adolescent years, lead to child molestation. Child molestation has been studied in the context of fantasy, especially deviant sexual fantasy. Ellis and Brancale (1956) found that exhibitionists and child molesters tend to have difficulty explaining their motives. Bell and Hall (1971) held that dominant mothers or the perception of a dominant mother had an important developmental function in child molestation. The MTC: CM3 (Child Molesters Revision 3) developed by the Massachusetts Treatment center classified child molesters in two dimensions. The first dimension focuses on the degree of fixation the offender has on children and the level of social competence demonstrated by the offender (Bartol & Bartol, 2004). The second dimension focuses on the amount of contact with children, the level of injury to the victim, and the amount of sadism in the attack. Based on these dimensions sexual offenders are further classified (Bartol & Bartol, 2004). The classification helps in the treatment of these offenders.

Overestimation of eyewitness’ memories

In the forensic context, it has been often argued that jurors often overestimate the validity of eyewitness testimony because they are unaware of all the factors that can compromise an eyewitness’s accuracy. Forensic psychology, by providing theories of memory explains the factors that can interfere with eyewitness perception, such as the weapons focus effect, or factors that interfere with memory storage, such as the effect of prior exposures on suspect identification (Esgate et al, 2005). Studies show that jurors do overestimate the accuracy of eyewitnesses. The experiments of Bartlett (1932) found that recall is prone to distortion by the individual’s prior knowledge and expectations and warned that this effect would likely apply to the testimony of eyewitnesses. Elizabeth Loftus initiated modern research on interference effects on memory for realistic information. Loftus’s work began with studies of how the phrasing of a question may alter how people answer thereby affecting the validity of eyewitness testimony. Loftus and Burns (1982) have shown that eyewitness testimony tends to be particularly prone to distortion when the events witnessed involve violence since witnesses are likely to be less perceptive when in a frightened state (Esgate et al, 2005). Eyewitness testimony is also vulnerable to contamination for information received after the witness even, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as the ‘misinformation effect’. In this case, Loftus explained that some of the aspects of the original trace will be overwritten by later information and therefore be permanently lost (Loftus and Loftus, 1980). Loftus, Miller, and Burns (1978) found that eyewitness memories became increasingly vulnerable to contamination with the passage of time and other kinds of input. The ability of eyewitnesses to recall the appearance of an individual also suffered from contamination effects (Esgate et al, 2005). Recently it has been found that it is possible to inhibit the retrieval of a particular piece of information by omitting it from a subsequent post-event presentation and children are more susceptible to this effect (Wright, Loftus and Hall, 2001). In some circumstances, it is possible to create entirely false memories in the mind of a witness by the use of suggestion effects, especially in small children (Connolly and Turtle, 2001). Thus we find that forensic psychology plays a vital role in validating eyewitness testimony.

Summary

Likewise, forensic psychology plays a huge role in the treatment of juvenile offenders by providing clues to their criminal behavior, providing profile analysis in the case of rape cases, invalidating eyewitness testimony, understanding and treating child molesters, etc. However, the field of forensic psychology is not without its controversies. According to a study by Ebbesen and Konecni (1996), forensic psychologists cannot be used in a court of law to validate eyewitness testimony because the nature of what is know about memory is very complex and can only confuse the judge. Moreover, they point out that research in the area of eyewitness memory lacks the external validity necessary to be useful to jurors when deciding whether a particular defendant is guilty. In the case of child molestation cases, forensic psychologists are frequently asked to evaluate children and adults to assess whether a pattern of abuse is evident, to identify personal, family, and outside stressors that are contributing to the abuse pattern, or creating a high-risk situation for abuse to occur, and to develop treatment recommendations to eliminate the abuse that is identified. Thus, they have to have both a clinical bent of mind as well as an investigative bent of mind. The forensic psychologists also must explain, evaluate or critique reports and evaluations completed by other psychologists, to assess whether the higher standards of the criminal court were used to determine the conclusions and to comment on whether the assessment procedures were reliable, or whether the tests used do predict what they are said to predict. Psychologists may be asked to testify regarding the limitations of psychological assessment as well.

Conclusion

To conclude we may say that forensic psychology is a coherent subject area to a moderate extent in as much as it is restricted to the study of psychological theories in the context of criminal behavior. However, forensic psychology in the twenty-first century has become very expansive in scope and includes the application of psychology to civil and criminal proceedings, communicating expert opinions, and intervening with offenders. There is always scope for development in this field as the nature of crimes keeps expanding and newer technologies are helping people to do crimes in different ways such as cybersex crimes and internet frauds. Understanding the personalities behind the crime and helping the law to identify them and helping jurors to decide whether to punish or treat criminals is within the scope of forensic. Recently there has been an increase in crime rates and recidivism is endemic in all industrialized societies. Just punishing offenders will not be a practical, logical, or moral option. Forensic psychologists are needed to work with an emphasis on the prevention and rehabilitation of offenders. This proposition will be the starting point for the future growth of forensic psychology. Secondly, there needs to be more focus on the youth offenders in prison. Many young lives are lost due to intervention politics. Forensic psychologists cross-trained in the areas of corrections, adolescent delinquency, and psychology can work wonders in this area. According to Graham J. Towl and Adrian Needs (2004), critical awareness and understanding of ethical issues are crucial to the future of forensic psychology. This implies that the forensic psychologist of the future must be able to address issues of diversity.

References

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