Police Psychology

The Handbook of Police Psychology features contributions from over 30 leading experts on the core matters of police psychology. The collection surveys everything from the beginnings of police psychology and early influences on the profession; to pre-employment screening, assessment, and evaluation; to clinical interventions. Alongside original chapters first published in 2011, this edition features new content on deadly force encounters, officer resilience training, and police leadership enhancement. Influential figures in the field of police psychology are discussed, including America’s first full-time police psychologist, who served in the Los Angeles Police Department, and the first full-time police officer to earn a doctorate in psychology while still in uniform, who served with the New York Police Department. The Handbook of Police Psychology is an invaluable resource for police legal advisors, policy writers, and police psychologists, as well as for graduates studying police or forensic psychology.

Police Psychology: New Trends in Forensic Psychological Science is a relatively new specialty that can be broadly defined as the application of psychological principles and methods to assist law enforcement. This publication aims to bring together the contributions of some of the most prolific authors in the field to bridge the gap between the knowledge base of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers regarding the interface of psychological sciences and law enforcement. Explores the contribution of psychology on the way patrol officers deal with offenders with mental illness or respond and assess the risk of vulnerable victims (e.g. domestic violence, sexual assault) Contains ethically correct investigation techniques Written by the foremost authorities on the subject from around the globe

Go behind the scenes of police work with this unique book that opens the door to the psychological side of policing. Police Psychology: A New Specialty and New Challenges for Men and Women in Blue offers readers the opportunity to examine two different aspects of police psychology: psychology as it pertains to the personality of police officers and the application of psychology in police practices. The book takes readers inside the lives of real officers struggling with the daily quest to remain mentally healthy in the face of often-gruesome crime scenes. The actual experience of police work is illustrated through case studies and vignettes, and the text offers a template of best practices for those who practice police psychology. Other insights in this book reveal the practical side of policing, examining the use of psychology in hostage negotiation, interview and interrogation, threat assessment, and criminal profiling. Readers go behind the scenes to watch as police apply psychological principles in actual cases, and then are given the opportunity to match wits with a simulated foe themselves.

Current Perspectives in Forensic Psychology and Criminal Justice is a dynamic reader that provides cutting-edge research in police and correctional psychology, the psychology of crime and victimization, and psychology as applied to criminal and civil courts. Addressing key topics in each of three major course areas—criminal behavior, forensic psychology, and psychology and law—the book highlights how forensic psychology has contributed to the understanding of criminal behavior and crime prevention. Editors Curt R. Bartol and Anne M. Bartol have assembled published journal articles, as well as commentaries written specifically for this book by forensics experts, to provide an overview of the wide array of prevalent theories in this field.

Criminal psychology is the application of the principles of normal and abnormal psychology to the understanding, prediction, and control of criminal behavior. Criminal Psychology: Nature, Nurture, Culture provides an in-depth yet readable introduction to the foundations of criminal psychology as it is understood and practiced from the classroom to the courtroom. The book is organized into five sections. Part I examines the nature and origins of criminal behavior. These chapters outline the role of psychology in the criminal justice system, and review the biology, psychology, and sociology of crime to develop a naturalistic model of criminal behavior that can guide theory and practice in law enforcement, criminal justice, and forensic evaluation. Part II examines the major classes of mental disorder that may be associated with criminal behavior, including psychotic disorders, mood disorders, organic brain syndromes, substance abuse, and personality disorders. Each chapter consists of a description of the syndrome, followed by applications to law enforcement, criminal justice, and forensic mental health issues of competency, sanity, and criminal culpability. Part III deals with death. Topics include homicide, serial murder, mass homicide, workplace and school violence, and terrorism. Part IV covers sexual offenses and crimes within the family, including rape and sexual assault, sex crimes against children, child battery, domestic violence, and family homicide. Part V discusses the psychological dynamics of a variety of common crimes, such as stalking and harassment, theft and robbery, gang violence, organized crime, arson, hate crimes, victimology, the psychology of corrections, and the death penalty. Each chapter contains explanatory tables and sidebars that illustrate the chapter’s main topic with examples from real-life cases and the media, and explore controversies surrounding particular issues in criminal psychology, such as criminal profiling, sexual predator laws, dealing with children who kill, psychotherapy with incarcerated offenders, and the use of “designer defenses” in court. Grounded in thorough scholarship and written in a crisp, engaging style, this volume is the definitive handbook and reference source for forensic psychologists, mental health practitioners, attorneys, judges, law enforcement professionals, and military personnel. It will also serve as an authoritative core text for courses in forensic psychology, criminology, and criminal justice practice.

In recent years, personality assessment by professional psychologists has taken on an increasingly important role in the field of police work. Most importantly, personality assessment instruments have been utilized in the pre-employment psychological screening of police officer candidates. This psychological screening takes place at the end of the hiring process to ensure that candidates do not have personality characteristics or existing psychopathology that would interfere with their job performance. Personality assessment is also used for other applications in police psychology. These applications include fitness-for-duty evaluations (FFDEs) and second opinion evaluations of officers who challenge hiring decisions. Moreover, police psychologists are involved in a considerable amount of research in order to determine which tests and scales are most appropriate for evaluations. The present volume is divided into four parts to cover the relevant issues in personality assessment for police work. Part I provides an introduction and the basic principles of personality assessment in police psychology. Part II focuses on the major assessment instruments used in police psychology. These include the MMPI-2, the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI), the Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI) and Hilson Tests, the M-PULSE Inventory, pre-offer integrity instruments, and the Rorschach Comprehensive System. Part III examines multiple issues in personality assessment research in the field of police psychology. Part IV covers applications of personality assessment in police psychology. These applications include pre-employment evaluations, fitness for duty evaluations, conditional second opinion psychological evaluations of candidates, using multiple sources of information when conducting mandatory or required evaluations, and the politics of personality assessment in police agencies. This unique and comprehensive text is designed for psychologists who are actively working in the field of law enforcement, including psychologists in both applied and research/academic settings.

This ground-breaking text is the first to provide a detailed overview of Investigative Psychology, from the earliest work through to recent studies, including descriptions of previously unpublished internal reports. Crucially it provides a framework for students to explore this exciting terrain, combining Narrative Theory and an Action Systems framework. It includes empirically tested models for Offender Profiling and guidance for investigations, as well as an agenda for research in Investigative Psychology. Investigative Psychology features: The full range of crimes from fraud to terrorism, including burglary, serial killing, arson, rape, and organised crime Important methodologies including multi-dimensional scaling and the Radex approach as well as Social Network Analysis Geographical Offender Profiling, supported by detailed analysis of the underlying psychological processes that make this such a valuable investigative decision support tool The full range of investigative activities, including effective information collection, detecting deception and the development of decision support systems. In effect, this text introduces an exciting new paradigm for a wide range of psychological contributions to all forms of investigation within and outside of law enforcement. Each chapter has actual cases and quotations from offenders and ends with questions for discussion and research, making this a valuable text for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Applied and Forensic Psychology, Criminology, Socio-Legal Studies and related disciplines.