Psychology and law : bridging the gap

277 Pages·2008·1.71 MB·English

by  Rita Žukauskienė

PSYCHOLOGY AND LAW
PSYCHOLOGY, CRIME AND LAW SERIES
Series Editor: David Canter
Forthcoming titles in the Series
Principles of Geographical Offender Profiling
David Canter and Donna Youngs
Applications of Geographical Offender Profiling
David Canter and Donna Youngs
Profiling Violent Crime
David Canter and Donna Youngs
The Investigative Psychology of Serial Killings
David Canter and Donna Youngs
Profiling Homicide
C. Gabrielle Salfati
Safer Sex in the City
David Canter, Maria Ioannou and Donna Youngs
Behavioural Analysis of Crime: New Directions in Offender Profiling
Donna Youngs
Psychology in Court
Joel D. Lieberman and Daniel A. Krauss

David Canter is Professor of Psychology at The University of Liverpool, where he directs The
Centre for Investigative Psychology, which he established there in 1994. He is a Fellow of the
British Psychology Society and the American Psychological Association and an Academician
of the Academy of Social Sciences. He is a Chartered Forensic Psychologist and member of the
Forensic Science Society, and a Fellow of The Royal Society of Medicine and the RSA. He has
edited over 30 academic books, bringing together the work of others as well as publishing five
major books that he authored directly. He has published at least 200 papers in academic and
professional journals. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Environmental Psychology, and
has recently established the new Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling.
David is regularly invited to give keynote addresses at international conferences all over
the world. His book, Criminal Shadows not only won the Golden Dagger award for True-
Crime but also the US equivalent, an Anthony award. He frequently contributes to television
and radio documentaries and news programmes, having written, presented and co-produced
a six-part documentary series on ‘Mapping Murder’. From time to time he also writes for
various newspapers including The Times and The News of the World. David is internationally
known for his cross-disciplinary research and consultancy as well as providing evidence in a
number of high profile court cases and government enquiries.
Psychology and Law
Bridging the Gap
Edited by
DAVID CANTER
Centre for Investigative Psychology, University of Liverpool, UK
RITA ŽUKAUSKIENĖ
Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania
© David Canter and Rita Žukauskienė 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
David Canter and Rita Žukauskienė have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Gower House Suite 420
Croft Road 101 Cherry Street
Aldershot Burlington, VT 05401-4405
Hampshire GU11 3HR USA
England
Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Psychology and law : bridging the gap. - (Psychology, crime
and law)
1. Law - Psychological aspects 2. Forensic psychology
I. Canter, David V. II. Žukauskienė, Rita
340.1'9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Psychology and law : bridging the gap / edited by David Canter and Rita Žukauskienė.
p. cm. -- (Psychology, crime and law)
Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-2656-5
ISBN-10: 0-7546-2656-3 (hbk.)
ISBN-10: 0-7546-2660-1 (pbk.)
1. Law--Psychological aspects. I. Canter, David V. II. Žukauskienė, Rita.
K346.P798 2007
340'19--dc22
2007011096
ISBN 13: 978 0 7546 2656 5 (hardback)
ISBN 13: 978 0 7546 2660 2 (paperback)
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall.
Contents
Series Preface vii
Foreword ix
List of Contributors xi
1 In the Kingdom of the Blind 1
David Canter
2 Contemporary Challenges in Investigative Psychology: Revisiting
the Canter Offender Profiling Equations 23
Donna Youngs
3 Lie Detectors and the Law: The Use of the Polygraph in Europe 31
Ewout H. Meijer and Peter J. van Koppen
4 Eyewitness Research: Theory and Practice 51
Amina Memon
5 Identification in Court 65
Andrew Roberts and D avid Ormerod
6 Profiling Evidence in the Courts 79
Ian Freckelton
7 Implications of Heterogeneity among Individuals with
Antisocial Behaviour 103
Henrik Andershed and Anna-Karin Andershed
8 From Crime to Tort: Criminal Acts, Civil Liability and the
Behavioral Science 119
Daniel B. Kennedy and Jason R. Sakis, J.D.
9 The Consequences of Prison Life: Notes on the New Psychology
of Prison Effects 143
Craig Haney
vi Psychology and Law
10 Psychopathy as an Important Forensic Construct: Past,
Present and Future 167
David J. Cooke
11 Key Considerations and Problems in Assessing Risk for Violence 191
Michael R. Davis and James R. P. Ogloff
12 Computer-assisted Violence Risk Assessment among People
with Mental Disorder 211
John Monahan
13 Does the Law Use Even a Small Proportion of What Legal
Psychology has to Offer? 223
Viktoras Justickis
14 ‘They’re an Illusion to Me Now’: Forensic Ethics, Sanism
and Pretextuality 239
Michael L. Perlin
Index 255
Series Preface
Over recent years many aspects of law enforcement and related legal and judicial
processes have been influenced by psychological theories and research. In turn
concerns that derive from investigation, prosecution and defence of criminals are
influencing the topics and methodologies of psychology and neighbouring social
sciences. Everything, for example, from the detection of deception to the treatment of
sex offenders, by way of offender profiling and prison management, has become part
of the domain of a growing army of academic and other professional psychologists.
This is generating a growing discipline that crosses many boundaries and
international frontiers. What was once the poor relation of applied psychology,
populated by people whose pursuits were regarded as weak and arcane, is now
becoming a major area of interest for many students and practitioners from high
school through to postgraduate study and beyond.
The interest spreads far beyond the limits of conventional psychology to
disciplines such as Criminology, Socio-Legal Studies and the Sociology of Crime
as well as many aspects of the law itself including a growing number of courses
for police officers, and those associated with the police such as crime analysts or
forensic scientists.
There is therefore a need for wide-ranging publications that deal with all aspects
of these interdisciplinary pursuits. Such publications must be cross-national and
interdisciplinary if they are t o reflect the many strands of this burgeoning field of
teaching, research and professional practice. The Psychology, Crime and Law series
has been established to meet this need for up to date accounts of the work within
this area, presented in a way that will be accessible to the many different disciplines
involved.
In editing this series I am alert to the fact that this is a lively new domain in which
very little has been determined with any certainty. The books therefore capture the
debates inherent in any intellectually animated pursuit. They reveal areas of agreement
as well as approaches and topics on which experts currently differ. Throughout the
series the many gaps in our knowledge and present-day understanding are revealed.
The series is thus of interest to anyone who wishes to gain an up-to-date
understanding of the interplays between psychology, crime and the law.
Professor David Canter
This page intentionally left blank
Foreword
Psychology is spreading through many aspects of the legal process across the world.
The enlargement of the EU is further increasing the speed with which the application
of psychological expertise, currently prevalent in the US and Western Europe, is
being taken up in forensic practice and the courts throughout the newly emergent
democracies. The rather different social contexts in which this interaction between
psychology and law is now taking place is set to influence our understanding of
criminals and the influence of the law. It is therefore timely to produce a book that
captures many of these developments.
The occasion of the fifteenth European Conference on Psychology and the Law
in Vilnius in July 2005, organised by the European Association of Psychology
and Law (http://www.law.kuleuven.be/eapl/) provided a suitable starting point
for identifying leading contributors from both sides of this dialogue, across many
different countries, in order to put together a book that would capture contemporary
attempts to build bridges between these two very different disciplines. The book
is thus unusual both in including lawyers as well psychologists, sociologists and
criminologists as authors, as well as in the very diverse range of jurisdictions from
which they come, including the USA, across Europe and Australia. It thus sets out to
bridge the inherent gap between the practice of law and the profession of psychology
at an international level.
The book shows that bri dges are needed for the many different contexts in
which the law interacts with psychology. Chapters have therefore been included to
throw some light on how psychology connects with, inter alia,the courts, prisons,
community care, clinics, long-stay hospitals, police investigations and legislative
bodies. This allows coverage of well-established areas, such as the study of and
challenges to, for example, eyewitness testimony, and the nature of Psychopathy.
Much more recent areas of social science contribution to legal proceedings are also
covered, such as the liability that arises from not preventing crimes happening or the
systematic prediction of likely violence by an offender.
What emerges from all these accounts is that psychological involvement in legal
processes has rapidly evolved over the past decade from limited clinical concerns
with the diagnosis of defendants’ mental states, and academic studies of the memory
processes involved in providing testimony through to a full-blooded range of studies
and professional contributions. These arise at every stage of the legal process, from
the police officer attending the scene of a crime, through how evidence may be
presented in court, on to the implications of aspects of prison life and then decisions