Through my undergraduate and graduate education I have noted that many people (myself included at one time) have a misconception of what Forensic Psychology entails. Forensic Psychology is the application of psychological knowledge to the criminal justice system. That definition is clearly vague and broad. Ultimately, psychological knowledge entails all aspects of the psychological sciences that are applicable, while the criminal justice system considers all aspect from the criminal offense to imprisonment and parole.
I. The Front-End Operations.
When most individuals query me regarding Forensic Psychology they are typically most interested in the front-end (crime and police work) applications of forensics. While by far the least common application of forensic psychology, the front-end operations are often the most intriguing and publicly displayed (via media and entertainment resources) aspect of the field. One area of popular interest is criminal profiling. Criminal Profiling is the use of the understanding of human behavior, motivation, and pathology to create a psychological profile of the offender. These profiles include a number of important characteristics such as personality, age, employment, race, gender, and appearance related characteristics.
Criminal profiles can be amazingly accurate. One of the first known profiles was created during the first half of the twentieth century for the Mad Bomber of New York case. The Mad Bomber was an individual who planted quite damaging and very public bombs in and around New York city. After years of no leads regarding the offender a New York area psychiatrist was asked to aid if possible. He created the first known profile of a serial offender, one that was so accurate it predicted not only employment and relevant personality characteristics but what the offender would be wearing when he was apprehended. Other profiles have predicted many other amazingly accurate characteristics like the offenders type of car and a presence of a speech impediment.
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