Psychology

Mental Health Professionals generally provide the Legal System with one or more of four main services

As basic scientists, they study a phenomenon to learn as much as they can about it, with no regard for whether their work has relevance to the legal system.

Working with the Police and testifying at trials, they are consultants in the process of the voir dir, the selection of the jury.

As Policy Evaluators or Researchers, They study the effects of changes in correctional programs, legislation, and social services.

As Expert Witnesses,  Criminal Psychologists testify on a wide variety of subjects in civil and criminal trials

Although they are incarcerated and cut off from all-but-limited contact with the outside world, the Constitutional Rights afforded to every American Citizen still apply to prisoners therefore, confidentiality is very important. Whatever passes between a Criminal PsychologistPsychiatrist and a prisoner is deemed confidential, unless the information the Mental Health Professional obtained somehow involves imminent danger to a personpersons. As an evaluator in pre-employment screenings, the Criminal Psychologist must take into account whether the amount of time the patientprisoner has spent in a correctional facility has effectively produced rehabilitation to the level that the Criminal Psychologist is comfortable in Accepting or Denying the patientprisoner employment.  This standard is also employed by Criminal Psychologists who are evaluating a prisoner s eligibility for parole.

A Police Psychologist does not only evaluate criminals--they also evaluate Police Officers. For example, let s say that I am a Doctor of Criminal Psychology, and I have been evaluating a Police Officer with a fitness-for duty series of examinations. Factors to be consistently monitored and recorded by the Criminal Psychologist include, but are not limited to

The Police Officer s ability to work well with others--in the role of a SWAT team Police Officer you must follow the direct orders of your superiors because lives are at stake. SWAT team work requires one  Chief  Police Officer among many  Indian  Police Officers.

The Police Officer s record of aggressive behavior. How quickly does he  lose his cool  and react with violence or aggressive actions. These types of behavior would be catastrophic to a SWAT team member.

How well, exactly, does the Police Officer treat people of other Races, Religions, Gender,  or sexual orientation. With 1 in 10 males currently surveyed to be gay, and 1 in 13 women currently surveyed to be gay, chances are the Police Officer will have to come face-to-face with this issue. The United States was horrifically attacked on September 11, 2001, The perpetrators who conducted the coordinated attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and, if it had not  crashed  mysteriously in a field in Pennsylvania, possibly even The White House, were all members of the Religion of Islam. How would the Police Officer being evaluated react to being paired up with a Muslim person The role of psychology in relation to the field of law enforcement has been a critical one. There are people like W.A. Mozart, who wrote his first symphony at age 7, his first opera at age 12. By the time he turned 8-years-old he was performing for Kings and even the Pope himself.  There are people like Einstein, who, while dyslexic and unable to read, was doing Engineering Calculus by age 11. Then we have other people, ordinary childhood, no sexual molestation or abuse, like Jeffrey Dahmer, whose parents loved him dearly as a boy growing up in Wisconsin. By the time he turned 12 he was hiding in the woods near his home, waiting for joggers to pass by so he could club them and drag them away to dismember their bodies, and then there are very young adolescents like Ted Bundy, who committed his first murder at the age of 12. People generally have no idea what forces come to play in creating these seemingly-fore-ordained masters and monsters--people except Criminal Psychologists. Their field of study provides the only insight we can everr hop to have into what factors in the human brain are or are not absent, or which neurotransmitters fire or don t fire. It s all up to them.