Chapter 3: Forensic Psychology 🧠⚖️

Introduction

A violent criminal is about to be released ⚠️. Forensic psychologists play a key role because homicide often links to the offender's background 👶🏠—broken homes, abuse, turbulent childhoods, street survival instincts 🏚️🛣️. Punishment alone doesn't fix the root problem 🚫.

Helping Sex Offenders

Forensic psychologists help sex offenders ⚖️💔 in courts and treatment programs by:

• 🧠 Assessing psychopathology
• 🏥 Planning treatment
• 🔄 Predicting risk of re-offending

Offenders with low IQ, substance abuse, or mental health issues need psychologists to plan treatments that work in prison or the community 👨‍⚕️.

Risk Assessment ⚖️📊

• ⚠️ Measures potential harm and likelihood of re-offending
• 🏫🔫 Helps prevent school shootings, workplace violence
• 🚨 Sex offenses
• ✅❌ Distinguishes high-risk vs. low-risk offenders
• ⚖️⚡ Predictions can be wrong, affecting freedom and community safety
• 🔍 Important: identifies offender type, special traits, treatment progress, risk of re-offending, and external factors like weapons or conflicts

Police Psychology 👮‍♂️🧠

Helps with stress reduction 😓, shift planning ⏰, pre-employment tests 📝, offender profiling 🕵️, counseling 💬, and dealing with mentally ill 🧠

Traced to Dr. Martin Reiser, first full-time police psychologist (LAPD, 1968) 🏛️

IQ in Police

Early studies (Terman 1917, Thurstone 1922) found low IQ common in police 🧩

• Patrol officers avg. 71.44, Sergeants 54.71, Lieutenants 57.80
• Army recruits avg. 100 ⚔️
• Reasons: low value of high IQ in police, early socialization, home & socioeconomic factors 🏘️

Exception: Maude Merrill (1927) Palo Alto police avg. 104, 2+ years’ experience avg. 143 🧠✨

Poland (1978): education improves policing 🎓

US recommendations: aptitude tests, psychiatric interviews, physical & psychological exams, background checks ✅

Personality Assessment 🧩

• Screening-in (finding ideal personality) often fails ❌
• Screening-out (removing pathological personalities) works ✅

Tools:

• MMPI: 567 items, six validity scales, ten clinical scales 📝
  • Hypochondriasis, Depression, Hysteria, Psychopathic Deviate, Masculinity–Femininity, Paranoia, Psychasthenia, Schizophrenia, Hypomania, Social Introversion
  • Screens pathology but weak for predicting performance ⚠️
• IPI: 310 true/false items, 26 scales, designed for law enforcement selection 👮‍♂️
  • Better face validity, tailored for high-risk roles 🎯

Conclusion

Policing has improved due to psychologists’ research, interviews, and assessments 📈. Similar progress is hoped for in Pakistan 🇵🇰.

Key Milestones, Figures, and Researches