Investigative Psychology and Other Approaches

Investigative Psychology and Other Approaches

Introduction

Investigative psychology is a criminal investigative process involving psychological principles and research to analyze an offender’s 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 offender’s 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 offender’s 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 offender’s 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 offender’s 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 offender’s 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.