The application of scientific psychological knowledge and methods to legal questions, covering forensic assessments, competency evaluations, expert testimony, correctional psychology, and research on false confessions, interrogation practices, eyewitness testimony and cognitive bias. The American Psychological Association recognized it as a professional specialty by 2001. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
What It ExaminesSourced to the subject's own accountThe application of psychological principles to legal issues: forensic assessments, competency evaluations, expert testimony, correctional psychology, criminal investigations, false confessions, interrogation practices, eyewitness testimony and cognitive bias. 1 Formalized YearSourced to the subject's own accountThe year the American Psychological Association recognized forensic psychology as a professional specialty; the American Psychology-Law Society itself was founded in 1969. Known LimitationSourced to the subject's own accountScholars question whether violence risk assessments are accurate enough to be relied upon for consequential legal decisions, since future behavior cannot be predicted with exactness and risk is always situation dependent. 1 Discipline
Discipline (category)Sourced to the subject's own accountForensic Psychology / Behavioral 1 Connections
Associated With
Criminal profiling draws heavily on forensic psychology's account of offender behavior and cognition.
Source Wikipedia: Forensic Psychology
Sibling disciplines at the boundary of mental health and law; forensic psychiatry is medical, forensic psychology is not.
Source Forensic Psychiatry (Wikipedia)
Source Forensic Psychiatry (Wikipedia)
The American Psychological Association's own position on polygraph accuracy is part of the discipline's documented scientific controversy.
Source Wikipedia: Polygraph
Examines Within
Informed By
Hervey Cleckley's The Mask of Sanity (1941) gave the first systematic clinical account of psychopathy, directly informing the forensic-psychology assessment tradition that produced Robert Hare's later Psychopathy Checklist.
Pioneered By
Robert Hare developed the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R), the standard forensic-psychology instrument for assessing psychopathy, widely regarded as pioneering the field's modern psychopathy assessment.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Forensic Psychology
Lead section
Forensic psychology is the application of scientific knowledge and methods (in relation to psychology) to assist in answering legal questions.
- History section
Violence Risk Assessment section
there are others who question whether risk assessments are accurate enough to be relied upon when making these consequential legal decisions
View the SourceWikipedia: Polygraph
Associated With: Polygraph Examination, Effectiveness sectionView the Source Forensic Psychiatry (Wikipedia)
WikipediaAssociated With: Insanity Defense, Mental state opinion section
A mental state opinion (MSO) gives the court an opinion as to whether a defendant was able to understand what they were doing at the time of the crime.
- Associated With: Forensic Psychiatry
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