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Introduction
Investigative psychology is a criminal investigative process involving psychological principles and research to analyze an offenders behavior or pattern. Investigative psychology was developed by a social psychologist, David Canter, in the 90s by showing how psychology could help the police in their investigations (Canter, 2000). This Investigative process psychology is a branch of applied psychology that assists in solving crimes and finding evidence that investigators can present in case proceedings. Before investigative psychology, the investigators tended to focus on what the offender did rather than get to the offenders mind and figure out how they operate. In the beginning, the focus of investigative psychology was to differentiate serious offenders from how they behaved at the crime scene. Investigative psychology focuses on evidence at the crime scene and how the offenders behavior when committing a crime makes it different from other approaches.
Investigative Psychology Theories and Approaches
Investigative psychology utilizes a wide range of theories from other areas of psychology, like social science, which contributes to understanding the offender socially and personally. One of the theories that investigative psychology focuses on is personality theory. The study links the offenders characteristics to their behavior, often referred to as the profiling equation. The evidence gathered at a crime scene often reflects the personal characteristics of the offender and how they act daily. Personality theorists Ankers and Sellers link personality to crime in two ways: personality type psychology and personality trait psychology (2009).
Some individuals possess specific criminal personality behavior, often referred to as sociopathic or psychopathic in personality type psychology. Social psychological theories show factors that draw people to do certain actions (Ysseldyk, Matheson, and Anisma, 2010). Cognitive psychology is another theory that has contributed to the investigative process. It focuses on understanding how the offender perceives things, reasons, thinks, and other mental abilities. During interrogation, the investigators found another tool called a cognitive load (Vrij et al., 2011), which shows why it becomes hard to lie when giving your details in reverse order.
The research done on investigative psychology shows that this study focuses on uncovering the relationship between the offenders criminal and their personal life. Two conditions are focused on the nature of the offensive behavior. One of the conditions is consistency assumption in that the offender must have a unique characteristic from other offenders. Another condition is the offender has to have predictable features which suggest his way of life. Therefore, an investigator has to find a link and a pattern between action and characteristics; if not, the profiling equation will not be possible; thus, this condition is called homology assumption. For instance, when an investigator uses the link to find out if one or more offenders are responsible for multiple offenses based on the patterns found on the crime scenes (Bennell et al., 2012). They are able to discern if the crime was committed by one or more offenders. All these assumptions are evident when the investigators utilize them and narrow down the offenders.
Investigative Psychology and Criminal Justice System
Investigative psychology can contribute to the criminal justice system, especially criminal profiling. It is sometimes referred to as offender profiling, psychological profiling, socio-psychological profiling, crime scene analysis, and many other terms. Criminal profilers use it to predict the offenders behavior or to establish some of the patterns and link the crime to the appropriate offender. Profilers are trained experts who work with law enforcement to solve serious crimes. Apart from connecting the offender to a particular crime, the profilers are able to deduce who the next victim is likely to be, where, and when. This is from the pattern that is demonstrated by the offender when committing the crime under investigation. Profiling is considered a nomothetic approach. This approach examines and combines data from many individuals based on the relationship and patterns. Nomothetic profiling is divided into four main types that are diagnostic evaluation, geographic profiling, criminal investigative analysis, which is a commonly known method the FBI uses, and investigative psychology.
Criminal profiling plays a significant role in investigative psychology and covers all forms of crime. It seeks to understand the offender by feeling and getting inside their head and trying to figure out what they might do next. Over the years, criminal profiling has been one of the most critical tools in solving crimes since the Federal Bureau of Investigation used it in 1971 (Pinizzotto and Finkel, 1990).
In this technique, the police have to work hand in hand with psychologists to find the offenders characteristics from the crime scene. The information gathered together with victims, witnesses, autopsy reports, and the behavior of the offenders can help professionals profile a person most likely to commit that crime (Ebisike, 2007). Offender profiling came in handy when no physical evidence was left at the crime scene. It shows only a person with specific characteristics and behavior, not a particular offender. This approach is very vital in solving complicated offenses like rape or murder since profiles are developed based on psychological traits and behavior patterns.
When conducting interviews for victims and witnesses, accuracy of a high level is required since the success or failure of an investigation depends on them. There has been the development of cognitive interviews, which has helped shape law enforcement training and promoted a supportive culture and supportive evaluation (Oxbutgh & Dando, 2011). Since some of the offenses affect the witnesses psychologically, the need for psychologists arises. They provide the support that the witnesses need to recall and give a vivid description of the matter under investigation went down. However, some of these descriptions can cause panic attacks, trauma, and anxiety; therefore, the investigators have to provide emotional and psychological support to promote the witnesss calmness.
Psychological tactics have to be used when interviewing suspects to get something out of them. Some of the suspects fear self-incrimination or fear being hurt by the offenders that why they fail to share information with police, while others tend to give false statements. Vrij (2014) describes lying as being more cognitively demanding than telling the truth because those lying should never forget their lie to maintain consistency. Psychologists or investigators use various methods like decreased blinking, increased pause, or sweating, which are signs of cognitive load for someone who is lying.
Nevertheless, psychologists act as expert witnesses too in a courtroom. Their main aim in the court proceedings is to integrate practices and mental health. They are invited by the court to provide a psychological evaluation of whether the plaintiff or accused is fit to testify under oath. The psychologists evaluation is based on the psychological, cognitive, and emotional competence of the witnesss statement. Police lineups also play a role in psychology in helping the witnesses retrieve information. Many factors like stress resulting from the incident, can affect how a person identifies the suspect from a lineup.
Weaknesses of Investigative Psychology
Despite investigative psychology being helpful in solving many crimes, it has its own disadvantages or weaknesses. For instance, the problem arises when profiling involves a group of offenders involved in a single crime. However, some studies show that some offenders can be identified separately because they do not conform to the social behavior demonstrated by other group members (Rashid & greenwood et al. 2012). Therefore, examining the offenders consistency in committing a crime within a group becomes very complex. This inconsistency arises when half of the group behaves in a particular manner while the other half behaves totally differently from the other half.
Profiling is based on the consistency of human behavior across time and place. However, this is disputed by some researchers who argue that human behavior is inconsistent in different situations, and there is no support for stable behavior of personality traits (Mischel & Peake, 1982). Merry and Harsents (2000) research shows that the criminal behavior of offenses like burglary changes with the situation that they are in because as long as the situation is the same, the offenders are likely to respond the same way.
Recent studies on meta-analysis show that a lot of conclusions and predictions made within a profile are ambiguous and unverifiable. There is a tendency of investigators to ambiguously interpret the information from a suspect in order to fit their own interpretation. They tend to ignore many profile conclusions and predictions so that they fit their own profile that they see fit or overlook the fact that the information could fit a wide range of individuals rather than one individual (Alison, Smith & Morgan, 2003). This is referred to as confirmation bias, when information is processed or interpreted due to existing beliefs. Confirmation bias is an example of how human beings process in a biased manner, not keeping it into consideration. Philosophers show that the ability of them to process information after they have developed an opinion about it is difficult. If this confirmation bias is used in profiling, it places the investigators in a closed cognitive system since the only evidence that goes along with the existing theories is considered. Therefore, all other information that is there gets rejected even though some of them can be true or helpful in the investigation (Baron & Byrne, 2000).
For this biasness to be eliminated, the profilers should always rely on research and psychological theories on human behavior. They should also be open-minded that human behavior can change under certain circumstances and not assume that human behavior is consistent. This inconsistency can be brought by factors like drug-induced effects and the fact that the evidence collected from the crime scene does not necessarily to the psychological behavior of the offender. On the basis of research findings, Mischel and Peake (1982) conclude that the behavior of an individual depends entirely on the situation they are in, and they are indiscriminate between situations, and they respond to situations the way they do.
The other limit associated with investigative psychology is how the research and practice relate. For instance, how the findings are described by researchers really affects how the investigator perceives those findings. The words like highly likely or probable can affect how the research is understood and how the profilers act upon it. For successful investigative psychology, there should be clear communication by the researchers about their findings, and it not only maintains and develops good practice and furthers the research but also creates a good relationship between the practitioners and researchers. A good relationship between these people can ensure the utilization of available data and expertise to help solve hard cases.
Although investigative psychology helps in narrowing down the number of cases during an investigation, this has brought a lot of controversies after it has been used in court. These controversies are due to their reliability, validity, and scientific basis. This is because it does not provide ways in which the profilers can point to a specific offender. However, investigative psychology has helped in understanding the theory of offender profiling. A comparison between the FBI approach and the investigative psychology approach is that investigative psychology is more of an application of psychological theories.
Conclusion
In conclusion, investigative psychology has grown immensely over the years in helping law enforcement solve complex crimes. The working of psychologists and investigators together has made a great impact in the justice system and still is making solving crimes easier with good decision-making. The availability of investigative graduate programs that train future investigators and the establishment of many research centers around the world have contributed to the growth of this field.
Reference List
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