Applying Psychology to Criminal Justice

This essential volume, edited by four psychologists and a lawyer, argues that psychology can, and should be, applied more widely, particularly within the criminal justice system.

Psychology and Law has made enormous strides during the last three decades. It now incorporates a much wider range of topics and has seen a marked international growth in specialist journals, books and conferences. The focus, until now, has been on research and academic membership rather than on practical applications and participation by practitioners, psychologists or lawyers, something this volume aims to change.

This book develops the case for successfully applying psychology to law, and criminal justice in particular, by providing a rich range of applicable examples for development, now and in the future. In Applying Psychology to Criminal Justice psychologists are encouraged to challenge the currently relatively limited ambition and imagination of psychology and law by examining, amongst other aspects:

• The relevance of offenders’ methods of thinking and concepts to criminal responsibility
• The ways in which psychology might be used to inform analyses of corporate responsibility for systems failure
• How analyses of decision-making under pressure are most effectively undertaken
• How psychological research and insights might be applied to the investigation and analysis of system failure.

This text is an important addition to the bookshelves of forensic, legal, clinical, and occupational psychologists, students, and criminal justice personnel: police, probation, prisons. Also essential reading for investigators, lawyers, law reform agencies, and those government departments concerned with home, constitutional, law reform agendas.

Contributors

Laurence Alison, UK

Ray Bull, UK

Susan Dennison, Australia

Leslie Ellis, USA

Jacey Erickson, USA

Marie Eyre, UK

Ronald Fisher, USA

Edie Greene, USA

John G. D. Grieve, UK

Kirk Heilbrun, USA

Peter van Koppen, The Netherlands

Jenny McEwan, UK

Becky Milne, UK

Francis Pakes, The Netherlands/UK

Emma Palmer, UK

Margaret Reardon, USA

Gary Shaw, UK

Aldert Vrij, UK

Jane Winstone, UK

All of the editors are based at the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies at Portsmouth University, which is the UK’s largest provider of criminal justice courses. David Carson is Reader in Law and Behavioural Sciences and is qualified as a lawyer. Becky Milne and Francis Pakes are both senior lecturers at the Institute. Karen Shalev is a lecturer, and Andrea Shawyer is a university tutor.