Chapter 5: Forensic Psychology 🧠⚖️
PSTR (Post Shooting Traumatic Response) 🔫😨
- 💥 Similar to PTSD, triggered when an officer shoots someone or witnesses a shooting
- ⚖️ Not all officers experience it
- 📋 Symptoms (Bartol & Bartol, 2004):
- ⏳👁️👂 Time, sight, sound distortions
- ⚠️ Heightened sense of danger
- 😡 Anger
- 😴 Sleep problems
- 🏠 Isolation/withdrawal
- 🔄 Flashbacks
- 💢 Anger may be toward victim, department, colleagues, or society
- ✅ Psychologists provide monitored support
- 🏢 May recommend leave or administrative duty
- 👮♂️👮♀️ Peer group counseling is increasingly used
Fitness-for-Duty Evaluation (FFDE) 🧠👮
Periodic psychological checkups for SWAT, undercover, narcotics, vice, internal affairs, or suspicious behavior
More intensive than pre-employment screening
Components:
- 📋 Psychological screening report
- 🧩 Personality, cognitive, ability tests
- 📊 Performance evaluations
- 💢 Excessive force incidents
- 📝 Formal complaints
- 🔫 Shootings
- 🏥 Medical records
- 🧠 Mental status exams
- 🔍 Background investigations
- 👥 Testimonials & citizen complaints
- 🏢🧠 Internal affairs & brain injury investigations
IACP criteria:
- 🚨 Complaints of excessive force
- ⚡ Sudden negative behavior changes
- 👁️💭 Irrational conduct, delusions, hallucinations
- ⚠️ Suicidal statements/behavior
- 💤⚡ Unexplained fatigue/hyperactivity
- 🍽️⚖️🏥 Dramatic changes in eating, weight, health
- 🧼🚫 Hygiene neglect
- 🍷💊 Substance misuse
- 🧠❓ Memory loss
- ⏱️💥 Impatience, impulsiveness
- 🔥 Inability to defuse situations
- ⏰ Excessive lateness/absenteeism
- ❌ Any factor raising suspicion of unfitness
False Confessions ❌✋
- ⚖️ Suspect admits guilt though innocent
- 📜 Common in law systems, leads to “confession rules”
- 👶 Examples: Lindbergh baby kidnapping (1932), Black Dahlia murder (1947) 💀
- 😰 Reasons: overpowered by questioning or psychologically vulnerable
Kassin (1997) Typology
- Voluntary 🗣️
- 📣 Attention seeking/publicity
- 👨👩👧 Protecting others (e.g., sibling confesses to protect family)
- Coerced False Confessions ⚠️
- 💢 Forced via threats, intimidation, pressure
- 🏆 Police motivated by pressure to solve crime or personal promotion
- Coerced-Compliant: confess to end interrogation or avoid worse punishment ⏳
- Coerced-Internalized: innocent, tired, confused people believe they committed the crime 😵💭
Police Interrogation Techniques 🕵️♂️
- 💢 Excessive force
- ⚠️ Threats
- 😴🚫 Sleep deprivation
- 💪🧠 Physical & psychological torture
Key Milestones, Figures, and Researches
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Important Dates | 1932 (Lindbergh kidnapping), 1947 (Black Dahlia murder), 1997 (Kassin typology), 2004 (Bartol & Bartol symptoms) |
| Important Figures | Bartol & Bartol, Kassin |
| Important Researches | PSTR, FFDE, IACP criteria, Kassin typology |