Forensic psychologists use their findings to improve the delivery of the legal system to ensure that the results of the case or proceedings are undeniable. As a criminal psychologist, you may find yourself spending time with case files and trial proceedings. You may find yourself involved with a lot of past case files and criminal profile analyses. This is actually an integral part to the first few years of any criminal psychologist. This may sound boring but you may find yourself sitting in a library or a record room full of past cases and criminal profiles in order to draw links between variables.
Law enforcement agencies commonly rely on the insights of a criminal psychologist in order to help them predict the movements and actions of a suspect. Visiting crime scenes, accompanying law enforcement agents, appearing in courts, providing expert testimonies and determining whether a criminal can stand for trial or not are some of the different areas forensic psychologists may find themselves in. As a forensic psychologist, you may spend time interviewing a suspect and determining whether they are fit to stand trial or not.
One of the most important aspects of a forensic psychologist is the ability to stand in a court room to deliver an expert level testimony in an easily understandable legal method. Perhaps the paths of a criminal psychologist and forensic psychologist may intersect at some point while working on an exciting and complicated case file!
On the surface they may seem like largely favorable choices and that the career choices eventually intersect. One way to look at this is from a research perspective.
Within this realm, a forensic psychologist evaluates the psychological portion of a victim's civil claim. She may, for example, evaluate the person's competency to stand trial, offer an opinion as to the litigant's emotional pain and suffering or look for "sneaky suicides," which are fatal accidents, that are really suicides staged to look like an accident, so relatives can collect insurance money.
When most people think of a forensic psychologist, they think of a criminal defendant completing a court-ordered psychological evaluation, and they would be correct. Forensic psychologists typically visit a defendant in a probation office, jail or prison, administer a battery of psychological tests, interview the defendant and write an evaluation for the courts.
This evaluation would typically include any applicable mental health and substance abuse diagnoses, an assessment of a defendant's competency to stand trial, an assessment of his risk to the community and his amenability for treatment.
Brenda Scottsdale is a licensed psychologist, a six sigma master black belt and a certified aerobics instructor. Forensic psychologists that become criminal profilers are often experienced in law enforcement investigations. Profilers may work full-time in law enforcement or as consultants on certain cases. They rely on criminal investigation expertise and psychological understanding of the criminal mind. The goal of profiling is to put together a mentality and perspective on a suspect to aid law enforcement in tracking him.
A forensic psychologist may also be asked to determine whether a litigant is legally competent to participate in a legal process. A forensic psychologist conducts pre-trial or pre-release psychological evaluations of defendants.
A typical evaluation would involve gathering an extensive background history, which is compared to victim and witness statements. The forensic psychologist supplements these data with the results of an extensive battery of psychological tests, which are compared to normative data on other criminals and persons of the same age and gender. The final product is a comprehensive psychological evaluation, including information about mental health and substance abuse problems the defendant may be experiencing, possible need for treatment and risk to the community.
By Chron Contributor Updated September 08, Criminal Psychologist vs.
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