AN OVERVIEW OF FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY
"A psychology which explains everything explains nothing" (Marianne Moore)

    Forensic psychology is a well-established, yet often misunderstood, practice area of psychology and law. Historically, the field predates the sociological jurisprudence movement of 1930-1950, and goes back at least to 1908 when Hugo Munsterberg (the founder of applied psychology) published the book On the Witness Stand, now online and mostly about eyewitness testimony and juries, but arguably the first book on forensic psychology.  Others cite historical benchmarks in Germany with the psychiatrist Albert von Schrenck-Notzing offering testimony in court about pretrial publicity as far back as 1896 or William Stern's publication (also in Germany) of the first journal or periodical dealing with forensic psychology, called Betrage zur Psychologie der Aussage.  In the United States, the first psychological experiment on the psychology of testimony was conducted by J. McKeen Cattell of Columbia University.  The history of the insanity defense goes back to England, to the case of Daniel M'Naghten in 1843, who shot and killed the secretary of the prime minister, and the M'Naghten test for insanity was used in many countries, including the U.S., up until 1962.  In American criminology, one can trace the origins of a clinical or psychological criminology to the psychiatrist William Healy, who in 1909, created the Juvenile Psychopathic Institute to assist the newly created juvenile court in Illinois, and his classic work (available online) is called Pathological Lying, Accusation, and Swindling. Numerous other people figured prominently in the development of forensic psychology, and it would be a mistake to overlook the mental testers of the 1912-1917 period, the polygraph pioneers of the 1920s, personality theorists such as Hans Eysenck (1916-1997), and a variety of other prominent people and organizations who contributed to prison psychology and police psychology, most notably 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 broadened doctoral education in this field, with forensic psychology defined broadly as follows:

Definitions of the Field of Forensic Psychology

     There is a narrow definition and a broad definition.  The narrow definition comes from the Executive Council of the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS), Division 41 of the American Psychological Association (APA), in its 2000 petition to the APA for the recognition of forensic psychology as a subspecialty. In that petition, forensic psychology is defined as “the professional practice by psychologists within the areas of clinical psychology, counseling psychology, neuropsychology, and school psychology, when they are engaged regularly as experts and represent themselves as such, in an activity primarily intended to provide professional psychological expertise to the judicial system."  The broad definition, 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; clearly 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." [from John Jay College website, 2005]

    Bartol & Bartol (2004:8) define forensic psychology as "the research endeavor that examines aspects of human behavior directly related to the legal process and the professional practice of psychology within, or in consultation with, a legal system that embraces both civil and criminal law."  These author go on to say that the practice of forensic psychology includes: "investigations, studies, evaluations, advice to attorneys, advisory opinions, and depositions or testimony which assist in the resolution of disputes relating to life or property in cases before the courts or other lawful tribunal, and encompasses situations before they reach the court as well as those situations following the court decision."  The basic issue involved in the "narrow v. broad" definitional debate is that criminal justice people, who advocate a broad definition, want the field to reflect more "research" and less "practice," the former being something practitioners are far too busy to be interested in, and the latter being to avoid calling someone a forensic psychologist who happens to just be a clinical psychologist working in some legal capacity.

BEYOND DEFINITIONAL DEBATES: THE QUALIFICATIONS QUAQMIRE    

    Nova Southeastern University's doctoral programs in psychology (Ph.D., Psy.D.) illustrate the many career paths and options that are possible regarding the educational and training requirements in forensic psychology, and the American Psychological Association's statistics on graduation rates are also instructive to look at.  The Ph.D. is the dissertation and research route, and the Psy.D. is a practitioner (non-research, usually clinical) route.  Far more people obtain their Ph.D. than Psy.D. every year.  Recent years have seen an expansion of graduate programs (at the master's, doctoral, and postdoctoral levels) throughout the world, particularly in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia.  Some universities even offer a combined JD (law degree) or MBA (business degree) with the Ph.D. or Psy.D. as part of an academic package, but such programs are notoriously rigorous and time-consuming.  Ever year, about 4,500 doctoral degrees are awarded in psychology, approximately 14,500 master's degrees are awarded in psychology, and about 75,000 undergraduate degrees are awarded in psychology (Bartol & Bartol 2004).  It might be helpful to characterize formal education in psychology at all these degree levels, as follows:

The Educational Levels of Psychology Education

Bachelor's

Master's

Doctorate

Most undergraduate degree programs don't offer concentrations or specialties, and if they do, it's usually social, education, or human development psychology. Most master's programs offer the full range of subfields, including experimental, biopsychology, developmental, cognitive, clinical, counseling, school, and industrial. Most doctoral programs offer the full range of subfields, the two most common ones: clinical and counseling; forming the vast majority of those who call themselves forensic psychologists.

    The four subfields known as clinical, counseling, school, and industrial psychology make up what is known as the "applied" or practitioner's side of psychology.  In recent years, with the growth of forensic psychology, it is sometimes said forensic psychology now makes up a "fifth" applied branch of psychology.  However, the APA doesn't really recognize it as an academic area of study.  Forensic psychology is NOT usually found as a concentration nor as a subfield specialty at the undergraduate level.  In fact, most people with only a Bachelor's degree in psychology quickly find themselves both unprepared and ineligible to become a professional psychologist.  The minimum educational requirement for a professional psychologist is a master's degree.  At the master's level, clinical, counseling, and school psychology attract the most students, and graduates of such programs, with appropriate clinical training, internships, or work experience, frequently seek licensure as a licensed psychological associates (LPA) or psychologist--master's level.  Since 1977, every state in the U.S. has developed a licensing procedure to assess the competency and ethics of anyone wanting to practice psychology.  Licensing is also involved with a doctoral degree, but having a doctorate is one of the chief criteria in successfully passing state licensure requirements.  A doctorate also qualifies someone to seek diplomate status.  A diplomate is a professional designation that someone has been certified as having advanced knowledge, skills, and competence in a particular specialty.  A person must be licensed to qualify for diplomate status.  The clinical specialty, as opposed to the counseling specialty, usually involves a focus upon the more serious mental disorders and problems, although this distinction is becoming blurred.  Also, more and more of those calling themselves forensic psychologists are finding that their client population is becoming increasingly diverse, and the counseling track (as opposed to the clinical track) tends to prepare professionals more for this diversity (see Clinical vs. Counseling Psych: What's the Diff?)      

    The courts overwhelmingly recognize and accept psychologists of all stripes as expert witnesses in all U.S. courtrooms (Jenkins v. U.S. 307 F.2d 637 1962). When certification programs sprang up in the late 1980s, the field continued to be a growth industry. Many practitioners regard their area of practice as forensic psychology, even forensic psychiatrists, although there are certain educational differences associated with the related fields, particularly those that involve the field of medicine, as the first two of the following do.  Before continuing, the reader would be well-advised to read this informative Wikipedia article on brain damage first. 

Research Careers in Biological Psychology

  • Behavioral Neuroscientist -- aka psychobiologist, biopsychologist, or physiological psychologist; studies how functioning of the brain and other organs influences behavior

  • Neuroscientist -- studies the anatomy, biochemistry, and physiology of the nervous system

  • Neuropsychologist -- involves a mixture of training in psychology and medicine; conducts behavioral tests to determine what brain damaged people can and cannot do, and how their condition changes over time

  • Psychophysiologist -- studies heart rate, breathing, brain waves, and other body processes that change as a function of people's behavior and information processing

  • Neurochemist -- studies chemical reactions in the brain and their consequences

  • Comparative psychologist -- aka ethologist, animal behaviorist; studies different species and relates them to evolutionary histories and ways of life

  • Sociobiologist -- aka evolutionary psychologist; studies social behaviors, like mating and sexual selection, and relates them to the functions they serve and the pressures that caused them to evolve

    One of the basic distinctions between a psychologist and a psychiatrist is that the latter has a license to prescribe drugs, although there is a movement afoot in some 30 states to permit psychologists to prescribe drugs (see APA pdf position paper and quackwatch article).  Certain other restrictions apply depending upon educational qualifications, but restrictions are not uniform as the case law is voluminous.  In general, a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist is needed to testify on insanity or types of mental disorders. Neurologists and neuropsychologists are necessary when X-rays, C-scans, and MRIs are involved or with cases of deficits in higher-order functioning. They are sometimes restricted from testifying on predictions of dangerousness, this usually being the realm of academic criminologists. A licensed psychologist might be used for psychometric testing and find some involvement with issues of competency to stand trial (although many states mandate psychiatry or clinical psych. for this, especially in death penalty cases). A practicing psychologist would more commonly be involved with mental status exams, civil commitment, or treatment programs and rehabilitative potential (criminal justice degrees have found some use here). Forensic psychology encompasses all the above and more, including diminished capacity (criminal responsibility), sentencing aggravation or mitigation, and psychological issues in the workplace (risk, discrimination, etc.) and the courtroom (jury selection, jury view, pretrial publicity, eyewitness testimony, etc.). The following list contains some of the more common functions that a forensic psychologist might have:

    The above list of all the things a forensic psychologist might do is a bit overwhelming, and certainly no one individual can or should try to do everything.  Most forensic psychologists are specialized.  Bartol & Bartol (2004) have identified the five subspecialties of forensic psychology as the following, with police and correctional psychology perhaps being the most "applied" subspecialties, and indeed, following mental hospitals, correctional facilities are the place where most forensic psychologists can be found.  Entry-level salaries for a forensic psychologist (based on the U.S. Bureau of Prisons Psychology Service, one of the field's largest employers) range from $42,000 to $92,000 (achievable) per year.   The list below, where known, contains the most common educational qualifications of those in the most common practice areas.

ADMISSIBILITY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

    Since Jenkins v. U.S. (1962), the general rule has been that every psychologist is a potential expert witness, and must be prepared to interact with the legal system unless they have ethical grounds not to do so. This rather broad sweep of the psychology discipline includes all of its subfields: cognitive, physiological, developmental, social, abnormal, clinical, counseling, industrial, and school. However, educational programs in psychology haven't yet geared up for training students in their forensic duties. Such training is noticeably absent at the undergraduate level, and only a dozen or so graduate programs in forensic psychology exist. Many academic psychologists resent being placed in the position of being, shall we say, "whores" (do anything for money) of the legal profession. Therefore, ethics rather than legal principles have played a larger role in guidelines for forensic psychologists. We'll talk about ethics again in a minute, but the main problem is that once a psychologist gets on the stand, they're fair game for almost every dirty lawyer trick in the book, and they're expected to respond to all things psychological, not just their specialty area.   

    Since Frye v. U.S. (1923), and it must be remembered that representatives from psychology were intimately involved in testimony when the Frye standard was developed, most states either follow a Frye-like rule or the FRE relevancy rule in admitting psychological evidence. An interest in meeting the Daubert standards characterizes many in the psychology profession, but there are plenty of practitioners who do not like Daubert for many reasons. Let's first look at the field in terms of Daubert, then the Frye-like standards, then the FRE relevancy test:

In terms of Daubert:

  1. Testability: The clinical theories and techniques relied upon by psychiatrists have had as much (if not more) epidemiological follow-up in the form of "natural history" studies as those in any other branch of clinical medicine.
  2. Peer review and publication: Forensic psychiatrists regularly discuss their methods in peer-reviewed professional journals.
  3. Known or potential error rate: Error rates are specified in psychiatric diagnosis as in any other branch of clinical medicine.
  4. Standards controlling operation: Standards governing the practice of forensic psychiatry are articulated in Ethical Guidelines, which provide methodological as well as ethical benchmarks.
  5. General acceptance: Courts have acknowledgment that well-established propositions in a particular subfield of psychology may be less challengeable and more easily defended than less well-established opinions. At the same time, by ruling out a rigid and absolute "general acceptance" test, courts have allowed for "reasonable minority" opinions.

In terms of Frye-like standards:

  1. Certain theories and ideas have more credibility in the field of psychology than other theories and ideas. For example, the theory of atavism has long been refuted, and drive theories have more general acceptance than instinct theories. (See the online forensic psychology dictionary).
  2. In most cases, psychologists should not be allowed to testify on the issue of intent or motive, as these have the same effect as testimony on the ultimate issue of guilt or innocence. For example, a psychologist cannot testify to premeditation, but can state the defendant is impulsive. However, sometimes testimony on the lack of a specific intent is appropriate, as is testimony in support of a self defense claim.
  3. Under no circumstances should psychologists be used to argue whether a witness is truthful or lying. The rule is that courts are prohibited from ordering witnesses to submit to psychological examinations or therapy for repressed memories in the case of eyewitnesses.
  4. Unimpeached psychological testimony, except in the case of a serious mental disorder rendering the defendant incapable of understanding their action, can be contradicted by contrary lay witness testimony, and juries should be instructed that they can disregard psychological evidence if they want to.   

In terms of FRE standards:

  1. Psychological testimony should be relevant in making some fact in the case more or less probable that it would be without the testimony. In short, psychology should assist the trier of fact, and not be involved in assisting the trier of law. Insanity is a legal concept, for example.
  2. Psychological testimony should be related to mental state, personality, or character of the defendant, and either of these should be at issue in the case before admitting such testimony.
  3. The probative value of psychological testimony should outweigh its prejudicial impact. Juries are often impressed by an expert's qualifications or psychometric testing, so the court must be assured that the value of the testimony is greater than the expert's influence on the jury.
  4. The expert should have expertise in the area in question in the particular case. This means that a mix of education and experience qualifies one as an expert. If one expert has a master's degree but little experience (a one-year internship), they are less qualified than another expert with only a bachelor's degree but who has testified as an expert in 40 similar cases.   

    Each different set of admissibility standards has its advantages and disadvantages. The FRE standard (as amended to avoid disguising experts as lay witnesses) is probably the best since Frye-like standards sometimes run the risk of letting "junk science" in and Daubert requirements are a bit restrictive. Several states also use a DUAL SYSTEM of standards: one for the scientific soundness of the results of any psychological tests or examinations; and another for qualifying the expert witness and their scientific opinion testimony. Psychological tests, like the MMPI for example, are subjected to Daubert requirements in terms of error rates, threats to validity, and so forth, while the expert is admitted under Frye, a Frye-like rule, or the FRE. The trend is toward assuring more rigor and discipline with the latter by raising the educational requirements (to a Ph.D. or J.D./Ph.D. as a kind of permit to practice).

Ethics: The Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychologists go beyond the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and represent an aspirational code of ethics for those who represent themselves as psychologists involved in providing professional psychological expertise to the judicial system. The following substantive areas are covered:
  • RESPONSIBILITY - services and/or products should be provided in a forthright, responsible manner, reflecting the highest standards of the profession
  • COMPETENCE - services should only be provided in those areas of psychology in which a person has specialized knowledge, skills, experience, or education
  • RELATIONSHIPS - fee structure and anticipated costs should be contracted beforehand, avoiding "contingency fees"; a certain amount of work should be done pro bono, and clients should be informed of their legal rights and give informed consent
  • CONFIDENTIALITY - every effort should be made to maintain confidentiality of any information that does not bear directly on the legal purpose of the services provided
  • METHODS - accepted clinical and scientific standards for scholarly/empirical investigation should be used, actively testing plausible rival hypotheses, minimizing reliance upon hearsay, and exercising extreme caution in preparing reports or other documentation, applying such detail and quality to the documentation that the standard is higher than for general clinical practice
  • COMMUNICATIONS - every reasonable effort should be made to correct any misunderstandings, misuse, or misrepresentation of products, evidence, and testimony, but avoiding any out-of-court statements

SELECTED PRACTICE AREAS

    Here is a nearly-complete list of all the practice areas where forensic psychology has made unique contributions to.  The list includes: risk assessment with respect to the potential for violence and dangerousness; understanding criminal behavior, the psychology of aggression and juvenile delinquency; jury behavior and selection; the accuracy of eyewitness testimony; the psychology of confessions and false confessions; the dimensions and assessment of legal competency (e.g., to stand trial) and insanity; domestic violence and family law including custody evaluations; prevention and treatment of antisocial behavior.  For the most part, this list makes up the more important topics.  The following sections provide some brief overview of a selected subset of these areas.

EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY

    A few psychologists try to carve out a specialty area where it's understood that this is the one and only area they'll testify about. This work is typically unpaid work, as opposed to all-purpose psychologists who usually get paid. Eyewitness science is one such area. It's estimated that there are over 4,250 wrongful convictions each year due to sincere, yet inaccurate eyewitness identification. This has led many courts to consider inviting forensic psychologists to offer testimony about perception and memory. Forensic psychologists are not permitted to testify on the accuracy of a particular witness, only on the inherent unreliability of eyewitnesses in general. They are allowed to explain the mechanisms of perception, processing, memory, and recollection, and to describe the empirical research which has been conducted on these subjects. With victims, the rule is that a psychologist can testify about how victims of child abuse, domestic violence, or rape often have trouble remembering the incidents in their past, but they cannot state whether a particular victim was abused, battered, or raped (but juries usually get the idea). 

    Several states do not allow forensic psychologists to testify about eyewitness identification at all, the reasoning being that it invades the province of the jury. Some jurisdictions don't consider it Frye-compatible; others seriously limit its scope to general circumstances under the FRE, and it's a common subject matter in Daubert pretrial hearings.  

    The expert testimony involves a discussion of event factors (duration, complexity, and violence). Eyewitnesses normally overestimate duration. Personal factors are also involved (stress, weapon focus, and expectation). Psychologists have termed the relationship between stress and memory the Yerkes-Dodson Law. Expectation involves personal bias, cultural bias, and stereotypes. Over half of victims who didn't even see or hear their assailant think it was a black man. Memory is also affected by storage factors. One psychologist, Elizabeth Loftus, has pioneered research in this area, which demonstrates the gap-filling process of the mind (with certain words and inaccuracies). There's actually a negative correlation between witness confidence and accuracy. Finally, recall factors play a part, and psychologists are especially critical of police line-ups, being quick to spot suggestive procedures, or other social forces at work.

 COMPETENCY TO STAND TRIAL

    If a defendant's irrational behavior is known to either side or observed in court, this raises doubts as to competency (a legal concept) and ability to assist his/her attorney. In such cases, a special competency hearing must be held. Forensic psychologists often testify at these hearings. Incompetency is separate from insanity. If the defendant is found incompetent (IST), no trial is held. If the defendant is found competent, then a trial will commence at which time the issue of insanity will be raised. Competency is all about mental state at the time of trial; insanity is about mental state at the time the offense was committed.

    Determination of competency normally takes place during an examination at a state mental hospital or a forensic psychiatric unit of a correctional facility. Other times, private facilities are involved. The inmate is interviewed for a period of days, sometimes weeks. Psychometric and neurological testing will also be done. Mental retardation, amnesia, and mild forms of mental disorder are not considered proof of incompetency by the courts. In general, the courts will often take persons to trial that psychiatrists think are incompetent. If the person is declared incompetent, the court will order them, under civil commitment, to undergo rehabilitation with drugs and/or therapy so that they can be restored to a point where they are able to stand trial. Psychologists often get paid for restoring someone to competency so they can stand trial, which in many ways is a direct conflict of interest if they testified previously about someone's need for treatment, and referred them to their own clinic or that of a colleague's. 

    Forensic treatment programs fall into three categories: traditional (medication, family therapy, substance recovery); contemporary (cognitive therapy, biofeedback, psychoeducation); and targeted (behavioral approaches to restoring competency, including role playing and mock trials). Somewhere around 50-75% of the time, the treatment is effective in raising them to a higher level of functioning so that they can stand trial.

PREDICTION OF FUTURE DANGEROUSNESS

    Judges are often uncertain about how high to set bail or what sentence to impose; convicted inmates often come before various boards or committees asking for release; schoolchildren with tendencies toward violence often come to forensic attention from mandated reporters; and police often call the mental health center for assistance in dealing with a mentally disordered offender. These are some of the situations in which a forensic psychologist or mental health professional is legally obligated to assess the risk of further, or future violence. 

    A standardized risk assessment interview or instrument is given to the mentally disordered criminal at some point. Many states have mandated particular forms in their statutes. An individual's score is then compared to national norms that have been put together from longitudinal or cohort research. A review of that research is beyond the scope of this lecture, but suffice it to say that predictive validity and actuarial norms are quite well-known. A few jurisdictions use Hare's PCL-R (Psychopathy Checklist Revised) where a score of 30 out of 40 tends to predict violence. Other jurisdictions rely upon the MMPI, the Rorschach, or some combination of both. 

    The official position of the APA is that neither psychologists nor psychiatrists have any special abilities to predict future dangerousness. Despite this, both kinds of experts are frequently called upon by the legal system for just such services. The error rates in predicting dangerousness are quite high, on the order of 80-90%, regardless if actuarial or clinical methods are used. Past criminal behavior is actually the best predictor of future dangerousness. Also, many of the risk markers that are used in the legal system are sociological, not psychological. Things such as "bond with community" might be a legal criteria which a psychologist may or may not be able to ascertain.

INSANITY

    Both "sanity" and "insanity" are legal terms, and forensic psychologists and psychiatrists must relate their scientific language to them. Various legal jurisdictions define insanity differently and require different tests. There are at least five (5) different tests:

  1. The M'Naghten Test (1843) - this is the hardest one for the defense to satisfy. It really consists of two tests: one, a determination that the defendant was suffering from a mental defect; and two, proof that at the time of offense, the defendant could not tell the difference between right and wrong.

  2. The Irresistible Impulse Test (1844) - this is intended to tap into the defendant's powerlessness to do otherwise, as with compulsive disorders or syndromes. It covers the things people do anyway even when they know it is wrong.

  3. The Durham Test (1954) - this is a largely abandoned test that asks if the offense was a product of a mental disease.

  4. The A.L.I. Test (1970) - this one, formulated by the American Law Institute, asks whether at the time of offense, as a result of mental disease, the individual lacked substantial capacity to appreciate their criminality or conform to the requirements of law.

  5. The Federal Test (1982) - this one was codified in the 1984 Insanity Defense Reform Act, and involves determining if a severe mental disease made the person unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of their act.

    This isn't the place to go into all the intricacies of insanity law, but the main problem most people encounter is sorting out the historical lineage of the various tests. The most commonly seen misperception is that M'Naghten's modern equivalent is the Durham Test, and this is correct to a point.  The "know" requirement of M'Naghten was first replaced by the "appreciate" standard of Freeman, and "mental disease or defect" (two separate things) was replaced by components of the ALI rule, not the Durham Test which only existed in the District of Columbia from 1954 to 1972.  Mental defect is usually thought of as permanent; mental disease need not be. Mental defect is what M'Naghten was all about. It required proof of an incurable condition. Modern psychology is all about mental disease, and psychologists rarely believe in incurability.  Durham has more in common with Freeman, Wolff, and a number of other cases which produced standards like diminished capacity, compulsive impulse, and substantial appreciation. There's also something called Revised M'Naghten, which gets at the recalcitrant treatment possibilities of those with antisocial personality disorders, sociopathy, or psychopathy. 

INTERNET RESOURCES
AAFP American Academy of Forensic Psychology
(diplomate certification)
AAPL: American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
(board certification)
APA: American Psychological Association (professional association)
APA Division 41 (American Psychology-Law Society)
Carpenter's TnCrimLaw Forensic Psychology links
(listserv available)
DANA Foundation Brain Research site (neuroscience for nonspecialists)
David Willshire's Forensic Psychology Links
(sex and serial killers)
Donald Franklin's Forensic Psychology Online
(general psychology)
Forensic Psychology Assessment Center
(general assessment)
Forensic Psychology Suite101.com
(stuff on profiling)
Forensic Psychology Web
(under heavy construction)
Founders of Neurology & Neuroscience (history page)
Graduate Programs in Psychology and Law Related Programs (career advice)
Harold Bursztajn's Forensic-Psych.com
(evidence law)
Hooper's Psychiatry and the Law
(job postings)
How to Cross Examine a Psychologist
(for lawyers)
IAAP: International Association of Applied Psychology (professional association)
Neuroscience on the Internet (megalinks portal)
Psychiatry and Law Updates
(mini-articles)
So You Want to Become a Forensic Psychologist (career advice)
Swenson's Forensic Psychology Website
(topics and careers)
The Subfields and Areas of Psychology (career advice)
The Ultimate Forensic Psychology Database
(comprehensive)
What is Forensic Psychology: It's not Silence of the Lambs (career advice)
Sample Testimony of a Psychological Expert on Occult Crim

PRINTED RESOURCES
Ackerman, M. (1999). Essentials of Forensic Psychological Assessment. NY: Wiley.
Arrigo, B. (2000). Introduction to Forensic Psychology: Issues and Controversies in Crime and Justice. NY: Academic Press.
Barker, R. & Branson, D. (Eds.) (1999). Forensic Social Work, 2e. Binghamton, NY: Haworth.
Bartol, C. & Bartol, A. (2004). Introduction to Forensic Psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Blau, T. (1998). The Forensic Documentation Sourcebook: A Comprehensive Collection of Forms. NY: Wiley.
Ganellen, R. (1996). Integrating the Rorschach and the MMPI-2 in Personality Assessment. NY: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc.
Hagen, M. (1997). Whores of the Court: The Fraud of Psychiatric Testimony. NY: Harper Collins.
Hess, A. & I. Weiner. (1999). (Eds.) The Handbook of Forensic Psychology. NY: Wiley.
Melton, G. et al. (1997). (Eds.) Psychological Evaluations for the Courts. NY: Guilford Press.
McCann, J. & F. Dyer. (1996). Forensic Assessment with the Millon Inventories. NY: Guilford Press.
Moenssens, A., J. Starrs, C. Henderson & F. Inbau. (1995). Scientific Evidence in Civil and Criminal Cases. Westbury: Foundation.
Ogloff, J., Tomkins, A. & Bersoff, D. (1996). "Education and Training in Psychology and Law/Criminal Justice. Criminal Justice & Behavior 23:200-235.
Ramsland, K. (2002). The Criminal Mind: A Writer's Guide to Forensic Psychology. Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books. [author's website]
Roesch, R., S. Hart & J. Ogloff. (1999). Psychology and Law: The State of the Discipline. NY: Kluwer Academic.
Ross, D., D. Read & M. Toglia. (1994). (Eds.) Adult Eyewitness Testimony: Current Trends and Developments. NY: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Shapiro, D. (1999). Criminal Responsibility Evaluations: A Manual for Practice. NY: Professional Resource Exchange.
Tapp, J. (1976). "Psychology and Law: An Overview" Annual Review of Psychology 27: 359-404.
Towl, G. & D. Crighton. (1996). The Handbook of Psychology for Forensic Practitioners. NY: Routledge.
Valciukas, J. (1995). Forensic Neuropsychology: Conceptual Foundations and Clinical Practice. Binghamton, NY: Haworth.
Walker, L. & Shapiro, D. (2004). Introduction to Forensic Psychology: Clinical and Social Psychological Perspectives. NY: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
Wrightsman, L., M. Taflinger & M. Linsenman. (2000). Forensic Psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Ziskin, J. & D. Faust. (1995). Coping with Psychiatric and Psychological Testimony. NY: Law & Psychology Press.

Last updated: Sept. 30, 2006
Not an official webpage of APSU, copyright restrictions apply, see Megalinks in Criminal Justice
O'Connor, T.  (Date of Last Update at bottom of page). In Part of web cited (Windows name for file at top of browser), MegaLinks in Criminal Justice. Retrieved from http://www.apsu.edu/oconnort/rest of URL accessed on today's date.