|
Legal psychology from social psychology historical introduction of forensic psychology
Copyright:
©2023 Robles
Citationy maqola ingliz tilida6
Copyright:
©2023 Robles
Citation:
Robles-Mendoza AL. Legal psychology from social psychology. historical introduction of forensic psychology.
Forensic Res Criminol Int J.
2023;11(1):5
‒
7.
DOI: 10.15406/frcij.2023.11.00361
The importance of professional ethics and a high-quality
execution in the forensic evaluation lies in the social impact that the
psychologist has. The psychologist has the obligation of keeping
updated the professional, scientific, and legal development knowledge
within his specialty, as well as having the highest ethical standards
of his profession. As mentioned by Serrano
8
his significance in the
forensic field forces the psychology professional to comply with his
obligations in order to avoid incurring on a corrective, criminal or
legal responsibility. Psychology experts perform their role as jurists’
collaborators, being experts who counsel judges to enter judgments
about a fact (persons or situations) on his area of expertise. Therefore,
the specialization in law and criminology scopes will be fundamental
for their professional exercise. So far, we have addressed the legal
psychology exclusively from a forensic perspective; however, this
is not the only application specialists can execute, but it is the most
common.
Garzón
5
mentions that it was approximately in the late 20
th
century
when relations between law and psychology began to be formalized
through the human behavior analysis applied to the judicial context.
In this sense, he defines Forensic Psychology as responsible for
judicial procedures and its relation with the individual psychological
processes. In this respect, it is a broad term that encompasses all the
possible application approaches of the psychology knowledge towards
the specialization area of the judge, even beyond the administration of
justice and the action areas within the courts. Forensic psychology
will provide to the lawyer, public prosecutor, judge, court clerk,
and other public officers the psychological concepts and technical
instruments they need in order to improve their judicial performance,
and consequently, they will deliver a better management of justice.
This way, prison psychology gradually begins to emerge, as well as
the psychologists assigned to the family courts or who act as specialist
witnesses on oral trials, the expert legal counselors who prepare the
dispute for both contending parties at the justice courts, and also as
support for the juries.
Other application area is the one related to the penitentiary field,
where the psychology professional analyzes and applies the inherent
evaluation and treatment procedures for people who are under prison
custody, as well as the procedures for those ready to be reintegrated
to society.
9
It is also relevant to highlight the contribution of
psychologists in the criminology area. Garrido
10
states criminological
psychology intents to understand the crime, its causes, and its authors
so to provide tools that help prevent it. Its performance takes place
within the forensic world (prisons, police departments, and courts),
and in the community itself by trying to prevent delinquency, and
through the intervention in civil organizations as well. It has a close
relationship with clinical, community, and social psychology, but that
does not impair its singularity concerning the severity and extension
of the problem that is being confronted and the outlined methods for
these tasks.
On the other hand, Chargoy
11
defines criminological psychology
as the study of antisocial behaviors, and as a part of the criminal
sciences. We can classify these behaviors in two categories: criminal
and non-criminal behaviors. Criminal ones are included in the penal
code and therefore, they are punishable; non-criminal behaviors are
mostly associated with non-tolerated conducts by society because
they trespass the established social rules. If we focus on criminal
behaviors, we can place criminological psychology as part of legal
psychology and criminal law. If classified as non-criminal instead, it
is placed within the criminological sciences and therefore, it involves
more socio-cultural elements.
One of the most successful psychology fields applied to the legal
area, developed during the 20
th
and 21
st
centuries, is the one of criminal
profiling or criminal psychology, defined as a process to identify
and provide a general description of the psychological traits of an
individual by analyzing the crimes this person has committed. In other
words, criminal profiling is a psychological technique that draws the
psychosocial traits of the victims, the forensic findings and the author
motivations based on the psychosocial aspects of human behavior and
the crime scene in order to elaborate the statistical data which allows
their classification into relatively homogenous groups of people, with
the ultimate objective of cooperating with the investigation or helping
to provide evidence of guilt.
9,12
The profiler must evaluate a series of essential elements that will
lead to the identification of the responsible for the criminal behavior.
Garrido
10
considers that first of all, a victim analysis is needed: gender,
age, ethnicity, habits, and appearance. Afterwards, the places where
the victim established contact with the offender are studied, and also
if the victim was transported to another location where the crime took
place, in which case we are talking about two crime scenes. A third
one could even exist if the offender hides the victim at a different
location in order to try to conceal evidence against him. Nevertheless,
many times the crime happens suddenly in a random, unplanned
place, where the victim is left. The reconstruction of the crime scene
comes later. This is done by describing how the facts occurred based
on the assault sequence, the
modus operandi
of the offender, the
response from the victim, among other factors. Finally, the criminal
profile is created, which describes the criminal through the analysis of
demographic data, educational level, criminal records, family history,
habits and interests, the vehicle used to commit the crime, personality
characteristics, and possible psychiatric conditions.
The psychology of criminal investigation is a brand-new area in
continuous growth. Its main contributions are linking different crimes
to a particular offender, inferring the characteristics of offenders from
the behavioral cues of the crime scene, guiding the techniques for
interviewing victims, witnesses, and suspects, and supporting the
decision-making of case investigators. Therefore, it covers a wide
range of investigation areas: the different aspects of criminal behavior
(crime psychology, criminal behavior analysis, criminal careers,
criminal narratives, crimes against property, violent crimes, and
organizational crimes), investigation procedures (decision-making,
information sources, computer systems, police interrogation methods,
psychological autopsies), and recently, the inclusion of psychological
evidence from crime scenes at the courts of justice.
12
Lastly, one of the
newest application areas of legal psychology is victimology, whose
professional development is in its initial stages. This area studies the
behavior of the victims before, during, and after the trauma event,
taking both crime victims and other kinds of victims into consideration.
One of its best performances with the support of behavioral
clinic psychology is the specialized psychological care given at
the assistance centers for victims of crime at the Attorney’s offices
that provide crisis assistance, emergency telephone assistance,
and psychological evaluations focused on the truthfulness of legal
testimony, as well as crime and victim prevention. Acting ethically
within the legal framework requires knowing the environment
wherein the professional will be working, and recognizing the
characteristics, concepts, and procedures of the judicial structure
of our country. Subsequently, the psychologist needs to acquire the
professional skills, training, and experience within this area in order
to achieve ethical and professional performance. To that end, the
principles of the behavioral theory, along with the criminological
theories, will be the conceptual basis of the specialized knowledge
Legal psychology from social psychology. historical introduction of forensic psychology
Dostları ilə paylaş: |
|
|