User:Morrisse95/Forensic psychology

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Forensic psychology is the practice of psychology applied to the law. Forensic psychology is the application of scientific knowledge and methods to help answer legal questions arising in criminal, civil, contractual, or other judicial proceedings. Forensic psychology includes research on various psychology-law topics, such as jury selection, reducing systemic racism in criminal law, eyewitness testimony, evaluating competency to stand trial, or assessing military veterans for service-connected disability compensation. The American Psychological Association's Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychologists reference several psychology subdisciplines, such as social, clinical, experimental, counseling, and neuropsychology.

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As early as the 19th century, criminal profiling began to emerge, with the Jack the Ripper case being the first instance of criminal profiling, by forensic doctor and surgeon Thomas Bond. In the first decade of the 20th century, Hugo Münsterberg, the first director of Harvard's psychological laboratory and a student of Wilhelm Wundt, one of the first experimental psychologists, authored On the Witness Stand. In the publication, Münsterberg attempted to demonstrate how psychological research could be applied in legal proceedings. Sigmund Freud also discussed how psychopathological processes play a role in criminal behavior. Other significant early figures in forensic psychology include Lightner Witmer, and William Healy.

In 1917, the lie detector was invented by the psychologist William Marston. Six years after its invention, Marston brought his lie detector to court in the case of Frye v. United States at the request of James A. Frye's attorneys, who hoped Marston's device would prove their client's innocence. The results were not deemed admissible, due to lie detection not being widely accepted in the scientific community. This led to the creation of the Frye standard, which states scientific evidence is only admissible when it has prominent standing within the scientific community.

The 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, was the first where the Supreme Court of the United States referenced expert opinions by psychologists. After this, the preponderance of psychological mechanisms within courtrooms began to be considered beneficial. Several years after the Brown ruling, Justice David Bazelon of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that psychologists had the legal authority to testify as medical experts about mental illness.

In 1969, the American Psychology–Law Society was founded, later being converted into Division 41 of the APA in 1980. As the field continued to grow, more organizations supported the application of psychology to the law. In 1976, the American Board of Forensic Psychology was chartered, eventually becoming part of the American Board of Professional Psychology in 1985. Organizations and conferences later aided in solidifying the development of forensic psychology, such as the American Academy of Forensic Psychology and the National Invitational Conference on Education and Training in Forensic Psychology. By 2001, forensic psychology was recognized as a professional specialty by the American Psychological Association.

In 1993, the case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceutical introduced the standard of admissibility when an expert witness is on the stand. This also includes the admissibility of evidence as well. This Daubert Standard eventually became the standard used by the U.S. Supreme Court. The standard is considered to be apart of the Federal Rules of Evidence, while most states still consider the Frye standard over the Daubert Standard when it comes to the admissibility of evidence.

Modern forensic psychological research applies psychological methodology to legal contexts. In the 1980s, Saul Kassin, a psychology professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, published a series of papers on false confessions. One of Kassin's articles was instrumental in overturning the convictions of five boys who had been falsely convicted of the rape of a jogger. At the University of Liverpool, David V. Canter is credited with the creation of the term investigative psychology, a sub-specialization of forensic psychology that pertains to of criminal behavior and the investigative process. Through the psychological profiling of the Railway Rapists, Canter assisted in the capture of the killers. The 20th-century psychologist William Stern, conducted numerous experiments on eyewitness testimony, credibility, consistency, and the influence of leading questions in court.

Recently, forensic psychology has grown in popularity in the media. For example, many recent docuseries on Netflix feature forensic psychological content, including Making a Murderer and Sins of our Mother. Other TV shows and movies such as Criminal Minds, Manhunter, Mindhunter, and Silence of The Lambs have widely popularized the practice of criminal profiling, particularly within the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU). One example of a highly-publicised case that used forensic psychology was Ted Bundy's sentencing. In 1980, he went to trial and was evaluated by multiple psychology professionals to determine his ability to stand before the court. The results from the multiple psychologist evaluations determined that Ted Bundy was fit to stand before the court.

References

1. "Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993)". Justia Law. Retrieved 2024-02-04. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/509/579/
2. "Daubert standard", Wikipedia, 2023-03-30, retrieved 2024-02-04 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Daubert_standard&oldid=1147326967