The Role Of Psychologists In Criminal Cases

Psychologists are very significant fundamentals of a legal system because of roles that they play. Psychologists typically play these roles like instructing attorneys on different cases, they provide extensive investigations, they consult on court cases, and jury selection. They also testify as an expert witnesses and evaluate trials. Some psychologists don’t need to be present to play a role in the courtroom setting. They can just be called on to do testing on individuals. Psychologists can be often used by police, corrections, and courts. .Mainly psychologist that are involved in criminal cases are a huge influence over the verdict in court trials. Police use psychologists for some things such as crime scenes to determine what a person was doing or thinking before death.

Sometimes they are used to assess officers who may have been traumatized on the job for hurting an individual and are effected by the outcome.

Sometimes concerns that derive with using psychologist in law enforcement is when they are ask to lie or stretch the truth. Psychologist are used at times as a trial consultant in the jury selection process. For a long time lawyers would choose jurors based on how they behave or theories they may have. Now the jurors are chosen by consultants because of their ability to find out if a juror is

bias. According to text “Jury consulting came into its own during the O.J. Simpson trial, when a consultant named Jo-Ellan Dimitrius picked the jury that found him not guilty” (McDermott, 2004). During different aspects of psychology ethical issues arise. Psychologist working in law enforcement sometimes have issues such as confidentiality. Some police officers may seek the services of a psychologist and the psychologist may consider them unfit for the job. When issues such as this happens if the psychologist lets the commanders know any information they are in breach of contract. Psychologist that work for corrections are required to maintain professional standards because of their close relationships with the prisoners. They have to make sure they keep safe as well as keeping the corrections workers safe and in doing that requires them to always restrain from showing any emotions towards inmates. According to text “It is important to remember the presence of high levels of mental illness in corrections in general and the fact that mentally ill inmates are, according to some reports, involved in up to 80% of inmate attacks on staff” (Hatcher,2012).