Forensic Psychology

September 11
th
2014
Lecture 2
Office Hours
- Tuesdays, 2-4 pm WH 2032

How to define Forensic Psychology
Narrow Definition
- A field of psychology that includes:
o Clinical practices in forensic psychology:
Assessment
Consultation
Treatment
o Excludes psychologists who primarily conduct forensic research
Broad Definition: Forensic psychology is both
- The research endeavor that examines aspects of human behaviour directly
related to the legal process
- The professional practice of psychology within or in consultation with a legal
system
Who is a Forensic Psychologist?
- Controversy lies here because in some provinces in Canada, there is a
difference in how much education one must have in order to be considered a
registered forensic psychologist.
Definitional Limbo
- When asking in court if hes a forensic psychologist, Brigham writes:
o My most accurate current response would seem to be, well, it
depends and in my experience, judges HATE responses of that sort,
which they deem unnecessarily vague or evasive
- There is a total lack of an agreed upon definition, moreover, theres no
training model for forensic psychology
Early History
- 1870-80s: Cesare Lombroso
o Father of modern criminology
o His work sought to understand causes of crime
- 1899:Development of separate juvenile courts
- 1909: Healey founds Juvenile Psychopathic Institute, Hires Grace Fernand
o Fernand the first to advocate that juvenile delinquency was caused
by social factors, not necessarily biological factors
o Advocated for treatment/reform, not punishment (primarily
castration)
- 1906: Sigmunt Freud gave a speech to a group of judges
o said forensic psych could be useful for the justice system
o Was a contemporary of Hugo Munsterburg (Graduate student of
Germany)
Writing was well received, wrong a book called On the
Witness Stand in 1908
Not the sole instigator though
o Herman Ebbnghaus: Memory loss
Munsterburngs Primary hope was to raise position of
psychology via the legal system. Hoped that police
investigations would be aided by forensic psych.
Munsterburg: Three Activities
o Demonstrating the Fallibility of memory: shows
that eyewitnesses are still not very good they
tend to be less accurate
o Published the book On the Witness Stand
o Offering his testimony as an expert witness in
highly publicized trials
Not Necessarily a good thing
o 1906, 1907 Infamous trials of Richard Ivans,
and Harry Orchard Munsterburg says Ivans
innocent, and Orchard is guilty
Ivans prosecuted, Orchards let go
Legal community did not take into
consideration Munsterbergs statements
o Reaction of the Legal Community
o Munsterburg was advocating vigorously for the
utilization of psychological knowledge in the
courtroom
o Legal community?
Charles Moore: Yellow Psychology :
psychology that is overhyped, in order to
sell more
Wigmore Influential Judge
Substance of the arguments:
Little ecological validity
Many articulated a belief that
experiemental psychology lacked
sufficient practical knowledge to
be useful
- Resurgence in the 1970s
o Interest of forensic psychology reappears in the 1970s
o Wells & Loftus (1984)
o Why the renewed interest?
Much credit to Social Psychology due to research in memory
deconstruction, interviewing techniques.
Progress in Canada
- Similar contributions to eyewitness testimony and jury decision making ( a
little odd)
o Many fewer criminal proceedings go to jury
- Research and advances in corrections *
Canadians Recognized as leaders in the Discipline
- Lindsay, Wells, Turtle
o Wrote about eyewitness accuracy
- Yuille, Bruck
o Memory in forensic context
- Hare, Hart
o Assessing psychopathy and recidivism risk
- Barbaree, Seto, Marshall
o Sexual assault and sex crimes
Conflict Between Psychology and the Law
- Hess has written that psychology and law differ along 7 dimensions
Knowledge Psychology Gains through
cumulative research
Gained through precedent,
logical thinking, and case
law
Methodology Nomethetic: Deriving
understanding from large
groups/group data
Idiographic: Operates on
case-by-case basis
Epistemology It is possible to uncover
hidden truths with
appropriate
experimentation
Truth in the law is defined
subjectively who
explains the evidence best
between a prosecutor, and
a defense attorney
Criteria Psychologists are
cautious, we want to see
things replicated
The law can decide on
what is true based on only
a single case
Nature of Law Describes behaviour,
Using empiricism
Law prescribes
Principles Consider alternative
explanations
Lawyer tries to convince
trier that their
explanation is the only
correct one
Court Room Behaviour Psychologists very limited
in court
Fewer restrictions on the
behaviour of lawyers

The point: Psychology and the law operate based on different epistemologies
- The notion of certainty is important to the law
- The notion of precedent is important to the law
Intuition over Empiricism
- Psychologists are trained to answer a question by collecting data
o Reliable
o Replicability
- Lawyers and judges rely more on personal experience and gut feelings
- How do you know someone is lying? Not that easy to answer
- The fact is, many assumptions about cues of deception are false:
o Averted eye gaze, body shifting, speech disturbances, long pauses
All invalidated
What Do we Do?
- Regulations, standards and Guidelines of the College of Psychologists of
Ontario:
o Obligation to correct misinterpretation
- National Judicial Institute
Do Psychologists Testify as Experts?
- R. v. Lavalee (1990)
- Says YES
BUT, What Constitutes as an Expert?
- What criteria must be met?
o Finally clarified by a ruling in the R. V. Mohan (1994)
R. v. Mohan
Psychologists can offer expert evidence if four criteria are met:
- Relevant
- Necessary: about something that goes beyond the common understanding of
the court
- Must not violate any other rules of exclusion: is an issue of admissibility
- Qualified Expert
Roles and Responsibilities of Forensic Psychologists
Clinical-Forensic Psychology
- Term used to describe clinical psychologists who assess and/or treat persons
involved in the legal system
- Employment settings: Jails, Prisons
- Also in court clinics
o A place where psychologists assess if the criminal is fit to stand trial
- Provincial forensic hospitals
o Assessments are done to see if the criminal can be deemed not
criminally responsible due to mental illness
- Juvenile treatment centers
- Private practice (rare)
- Researchers/Educators
Activities
- Clinical forensic psychologists are perhaps best known for their assessment
of persons involved with the legal system
o Such as:
o Responsivity
An assessment of what extent one will show remorse for their
crime. Likely to be a good candidate for remediation, which
institution will work best for the prisoner. Assess whether one
will be a good candidate for the resources that will be used
o Recidivism
Pre-release risk assessment
Good candidate for release parole?
o Fitness
o Criminal Responsibility
What was the mind state of this person when they committed
the crime, do they have remorse? Understand that what they
did was wrong?
Other Activities
- Clinical Forensic Psychologists also evaluate persons in civil (non criminal)
cases
- Guardianship
o Is this person mature enough to take care of family members
- Autonomy/Responsibility
o Are these seniors fully functioning so that they are safe to live on their
own? Sometimes family members bring forward information that
their relative is maybe not safe to live alone
- Emotional Harm
o Divorce
o Custody
o Abuse
o Hard to find clinical psychologists to do custody cases because
someone is ALWAYS pissed of (either parent). Doing this means you
must pick which parent is better than the other even if neither are
good.
Research Activities
- Non-clinical forensic psychologists tend to be more involved in research and
consulting
- Example (Canadian Criminal psychologists have done much research on the
following)
o Testing
o Treatment
o Impact of abuse/victimization
A lot of work done with people with trauma and sexual
victimization
o Police recruitment
Temptations of Forensic Psychologists
- Promising too much
- Letting values overcome science
- Dual relationships and competing roles
- Substituting advocacy for scientific objectivity
Promising Too Much
- Some psychologists may promise a level of success they cannot guarantee
- Psychologists need to be aware of, and to concede:
o Tool fallibility
Tools that we use are NOT perfect
We need to realize that even if a criminals PCR score is really
low, and he is really a good guy, every test has bias, weakness
etc.
Client prevarication
Offenders lie
Most programs in forensic psychology teaches you to trust
your clients But if you take that to prison with you, you will
be taken advantage of, and be lied to etc.
- Another issue: Psychologists should use always make a concerted effort to
use tests that have good evidence for their predictive validity
Letting values Overcome Empirically Based Findings
- Again, psychologists are only human, and so the temptation exists for our
values to determine our conclusions and/or opinions in a court of law
- You must be sure that your own values do not interrupt the actual evaluation
of the parental skills of the individual or family that you are assessing
Values Over Empiricism
The point: Psychologists must strive to maintain objectivity in the court
Maintaining Dual Relationships and Competing Roles
- A few Scenarios
- According to the CPA, to college of psychologists of Ontario, all of these
situations constituted multiple relationships - meaning you should avoid
any and all multiple relationships
- How easy to avoid in forensic settings?
o Sometimes hard to avoid
Forensic Multiple Relationships
Ex. Therapy Vs. Risk assessment
Ex. Family therapy vs. allegations of abuse (ex. Doing family therapy, and then
hearing one of the parents was abusing their child)
Ex. Research vs. Risk Assessment
Substituting Advocacy for Scientific Objectivity
- The legal system in Canada (mostly), as earlier described, is an adversial one
- What this means is that expert witnesses are hired by one side (the
prosecution or the defense)
- It is human nature to take sides, or to take sympathy for the side who hired
you
- Contributing to the problem is that lawyers will shop around for expert
witnesses that will be more malleable, and will lean one way or the other
- The end result of this is that some judges see experts as hired guns which
diminishes our credibility as a discipline
Advocacy over Objectivity
- To apply psychological theories and/or principles only where they are
appropriate, and the NOT overstate claims on these theories if our evidence
is incomplete or not corroborated

Next week: Interrogations, and confessions, deceptions and detections