psychology

Subspecialities of Forensic Psychology: Legal Psychology and Correctional Psychology
Antonella Zavala
MISSOURI VALLEY COLLEGE
CJ240

ABSTRACT
Forensic psychology is the science that studies the individuals offender’s behavior. Forensic Science has other sciences that coordinates its goal such as Legal Psychology which will decide whether an offender is on conditions to go or not to court and correctional psychology that will follow the behavior and rehab on an offender

Introduction In the show Criminal Minds on A&E, they show a dramatize version of what very few talented people do daily. Although, it is not what really happens it gives people a light overview on something that is more realistic and detailed. Solving a case, analyzing an offender takes time and a lot of research on the individual. However, their job does not finish when they catch the bad guy because that is just the beginning of a long work on rehabilitation to prevent by analyzing the motive of every offender and been able to prevent more crimes of occurring. Legal and Correctional Psychology follows the behavior of the offender during their time inside and outside the correctional with the only purpose to understand what lead them to offense in order to prevent more murders, suicide , child abuse and so on. In America, Forensic Psychology plays an important role in the Criminal Justice System, with special focus in Legal and Correctional Psychology. In the last 30 years Forensic Psychology has developed as a field and in 2001 was recognized by the psychological American Association (APA)( Heilbrun, K., & Brooks, S). It is well known worldwide and for helping Juries and supplying evidence on the case. It has been used to encouraged police enforcement officers to learn how to profile behaviors of offenders. Forensic Science is not only linked with clinic psychology, psychological behavior on offenders, but it is the product of the correlation between psychology and law. Forensic Science is the study of offenders and victims in order to understand their mental, psychic and behavior state of mind that lead them to offend. In addition, Forensic Psychology focused on data, generalizations, principles of Psychology and looks for the truth behind the offenders mind in order to help the judge establish motive.
According to authors Liau, Shively, Horn and Landau the term forensic, originally described public debate or discussion, it is derived from its Greek root “pertaining to the forum” where debate was conducted in ancient Greek and Rome. Other authors like Heilbrun and Brooks believe Forensic Psychology involved the application of psychological research, theory, practice, traditional and specialized methodology to provide information relevant to a legal question (Heilbrun, K., & Brooks, S). One of the first books on the field was written by Munsterberg and his Student Marston who were the pioneers on Forensic Psychology (Liau, A. K., Shively, R., Horn, M., Landau, J., Barriga, A., & Gibbs, J. C.). Munsterberg believed that Psychology was important in the court room (Canter, D., & Youngs, D). For example: if someone is mentally ill and does not know the severity of their actions, then they need to be psychologically evaluated in order to realize whether they are guilty or they can plead insanity as a defense. Even though Forensic Psychology wasn’t take seriously by many judges at the time, they learn that the Psychological evaluation was important not only inside the court room but also outside (Liau, A. K., Shively, R., Horn, M., Landau, J., Barriga, A., & Gibbs, J. C.). Forensic Psychology is also defined as the application of psychological knowledge to the legal system (Bartol & Bartol). The easiest way to explain forensic psychology is to break it down in subspecialties and describe where each one of these can be applied to. There are several subcategories of forensic psychology such as legal psychology and correctional psychology that are substantially important on the Criminal Justice system.
The history of legal psychology dates back to at least the early 10th century when a professor of psychology at Harvard tried to apply psychology to various legal problems in his Book On the Witness Stand (Laub, C. E., Bornstein, B. H., & Maeder, E. M.). After two decades interest increase Phycology and legal issues. This subspecialty of forensic psychology consists of theories that describe, explain and predict human behavior by referencing to the law. Bartol & Bartol describes that early in a case while attorneys are preparing for a trial and gathering information psychologist can be called in to testify during a trial. Main roles of a forensic psychologist in the USA includes, acting as a consultant to law enforcement, acting as trial consultants, presenting psychology to appeal courts, doing forensic assessment and acting as an expert witness .
Forensic psychologist’ major goal is to serve as an expert witness in both the criminal and civil court. They are more commonly involved at the pretrial and post-trial proceedings, but may also serve as an expert witness at trial (Bartol & Bartol).Psychologists have the necessary skills to provide a good assessment on an individual. For instance, if an individual is fit to stand trial or not. An expert witness will testify in court in a form of opinion from the evidence and information that has been gathered, within their area of expertise. A good assessment on an individual would require deep research on the case and on the history on behavior of the individual (Dillenburger, K). The opinion of an expert witness will influence the judges in the pretrial proceedings, but the final decision will be made by the judge.
The court must first decide whether the witness has the necessary skills, knowledge, training and experience to testify as an expert. Bartol & Bartol described that even though an individual has the professional background to qualify as an expert witness; it is possible that the judges will not allow the evidence. Experts should be aware that the opposing council will do everything in their power to highlight any inadequacies and deficiencies in the psychological evaluation findings. Therefore, they should know their limitations and strengths of their information.
Expert witness contributes to the subspecialty of legal psychology, because their function is to assist the court in a legal matter. They examine a person based on objects from the court and educate the court on the legal matter. Whereas the courts are unfamiliar with certain information, the expert witness serves as consultant providing an opinion to the court. There are about 2.4 million proplr in the U.S estimated to be under correctional care, custody, supervision (Laub, C. E., Bornstein, B. H., & Maeder, E. M.).The correctional facilities don’t have enough staff to evaluate individuals on correctional programs but have community services where they can find help. However there are some offender that are not enough motivated to be part of any of these programs. According to Bartol & Bartol the major role of a correctional psychologist is to help inmates in rehabilitation, treatment and reintegration. This subspecialty in forensic psychology is concerned with the diagnosis and classification of the offenders, the treatment and the rehabilitation of offenders. In this field correctional psychologist provides guidance and counseling services to institutionalized residents in a correctional facility (Canter, D., & Youngs, D). Inmates have to be assessing throughout their period in a prison or jail to determine if their behavior has improved, if they show signs of antisocial behavior or have any other psychological crisis’s for example victimized by other inmates or news of death of a loved one. Correctional psychologist will assist an inmate when they approach the end of their sentence (Laub, C. E., Bornstein, B. H., & Maeder, E. M). In this assessment the psychologist will meet with the inmate, review his/her prison files and do psychological test to evaluate if their behavior has improved, if they are a danger to the society or if he/she will reoffend. The same assessment will be conducted if they want to shift an inmate from a medium to a minimum security level.

Conclusion.
Forensic Psychology is a broad and important science on the Criminal Justice system. It’s main goal is focus on the understanding of offenders behaviors and evaluating not only what make them offense but also follow the rehabilitation inside and outside correctional. It is important to realize that a forensic psychologist do not perform in all the subspecialties that forensic psychology has to offer. Each practitioner will focus on a specific area of the field, and thereby become an expert in that particular area.

REFERENCE
Heilbrun, K., & Brooks, S. (2010). Forensic psychology and forensic science: A proposed agenda for the next decade. Psychology, Public Policy, And Law, 16(3), 219-253. doi:10.1037/a0019138
Bartol, C. R., & Bartol, A. M. (2012) History of Forensic Psychology. In I. B. Weiner & A. K. Hess (Ed.), The Handbook of Forensic Psychology (pp.1-27). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Standards for psychology services in jails, prisons, correctional facilities, and agencies: International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology (formerly American Association for Correctional Psychology). (2010). Criminal Justice and Behavior, 37(7), 749-808. doi:10.1177/0093854810368253
Dillenburger, K. (2007). A Behavior Analytic Perspective on Victimology. International Journal Of Behavioral Consultation & Therapy, 3(3), 433-448.
Laub, C. E., Bornstein, B. H., & Maeder, E. M. (2010). The Influence of a Psychology and Law Class on Legal Attitudes and Knowledge Structures. Teaching Of Psychology, 37(3), 196-198. doi:10.1080/0098628100362653
Canter, D., & Youngs, D. (2012). Narratives of criminal action and forensic psychology. Legal & Criminological Psychology, 17(2), 262-275. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8333.2012.02050.x
Liau, A. K., Shively, R., Horn, M., Landau, J., Barriga, A., & Gibbs, J. C. (2004). Effects of psychoeducation for offenders in a community correctional facility. Journal Of Community Psychology, 32(5), 543-558. doi:10.1002/jcop.20018