The work of the psychologist in the legal field has received various names throughout the years. years, including: Legal Psychology, Law, Forensic, Judicial, Criminological,... This diversity in its terminology denotes both a certain ambivalence and a wide range of development possibilities. Today the most widespread term is that of Legal Psychology, although the rest of the names are still used, depending in each case on both the author and the content of the treaty. Given the boom in this area, in this PsicologíaOnline article, we will talk about role of the psychologist in the legal field.
Legal Psychology could be defined as: "the application of science and the profession of psychology to legal issues and issues".
Index
- The development of legal psychology
- Fields of action of the Legal Psychologist
- The Family Law Psychologist
- The psychologist in the criminal field
- The psychologist in the jurisdiction of minors
- The psychologist in the prison surveillance court
The development of legal psychology.
International evolution
Doing a bit of history of the development of the relationship between Psychology and Law, four stages are distinguished.
In the first, from the beginning of the century to the 1930s, the pioneering works of Stern, Binet and Münsterberg on the psychological processes of testimony. Münsterberg, in his 1907 book On the Witness Stand, proposed the use of a Word Association Test that it helped to establish the guilt or not of the accused, which earned him very hard attacks among the jurists.
And from the 70's it can be contemplated the "boom" of Legal Psychology, noticing a notable increase in the number of publications on the subject; interest is growing especially in the area of Criminal Law and in that of Selection and Decision of Juries.
There is a key element that happened in the United States in 1962: the Jenkins case versus the United States. The testimony on the schizophrenic mental illness of an accused subject, prepared by three expert psychologists, was rejected in the first instance by the Courts. Along with this, the American Psychiatric Association raised its protest in form and its opposition to the admission of the psychologist as an expert. In the appeal psychological expertise was admitted which was proven correct.
From that moment the rejection of the psychologist as an expert in his field of specialization is considered a mistake.
Along the same lines, the psychological expert in the case of the "Role Play" (1997) may be considered a milestone in Spain in defense of the expertise of psychologists vis-à-vis other mental health professionals.
Development in Spain
The first historical element worth mentioning does not appear until 1932 when Emilio Mira y López publishes the "Manual of Legal Psychology" where he outlines what he intuits that the future of psychology may be in this plot.
But it was not until the 1970s that the first two precursors of this area appeared: On the one hand, the so-called Barcelona School of Legal Psychology, where the works of Ramón Bayés, Muñoz Sabaté and Munné Matamala (1980) than with their compilation of published works In previous years, under the heading of Introduction to Legal Psychology, they had a notable influence on forensic psychologists of the moment.
Being the other key element for the development of this discipline in Spain, the dragging effect that Penitentiary Psychology achieved on the other aspects of Legal Psychology. Psychologists began to work within the prison environment at the beginning of the 70s, being the first that began to interest both universities and other institutions about the work of these professionals in the judicial field.
Already in the 80s the College of Psychologists has also served as an enhancer and diffuser of this discipline. In this sense, it is worth highlighting the efforts of the Madrid Delegation, which in 1985 promoted the study for the preparation of a Catalog of Documents in Legal Psychology, the first edition of which would be released in January 1986. Likewise, this Delegation promoted the creation of the Legal Psychology Section in 1987, which among other activities was dedicated to the dissemination of this branch of Psychology, and to train professionals in the different aspects it encompasses.
As difficulties of consolidation of this discipline Munné (1996) points out that despite the fact that in our country we are witnessing a notable expansion of Legal Psychology this process is more quantitative than qualitative, in the sense that the growth that this entails hardly occurs at the expense of the potentiality of matter. That is to say, the world of law continues to remain almost impassive in the face of this process, as an example of this we we continue to find that the doors of law schools continue to be poorly permeable to psychology Legal. In general, we are witnessing a strong development of expert interventions before the courts by psychologists, but nevertheless we did not find a similar development of other areas of intervention of the psychologist in the field of right.
Fields of action of the Legal Psychologist.
2.1.- Criminological Research:
In this area, the general lines of research have been focused on studies such as Personality Variables and within them those described by Eysenck; the Socialization and Sensation Search scales; Cognitive Variables, such as orientation, values, and cognitive problem-solving skills. etc
2.2.- Police and Armed Forces Psychology:
The issues that are addressed within these organizations are usually those of formation of these groups, selection, organization and relations with the community.
Psychological intervention in this area in Anglo-Saxon countries has been focused on the study of motivations, personality traits, skills required of good police, attribution of responsibility to criminals, perceptions of society, stereotypes about minorities, etc.
2.3.- Victimology:
In contrast to the care received by the offender, the victim is left helpless in the face of the consequences of the damage caused, claiming the need to promote assistance and compensation programs for victims.
In Spain, the primary interest in this field has focused on two groups fundamentally: abused children, with societies appearing for their study and prevention and mistreatment of women, being in recent years a very current issue, with continuous news in all the media of communication.
The functions of the psychologist in this area would be the attention, evaluation, treatment and follow-up of victims in their different degrees; and the study, planning and prevention in risk groups and informative campaigns to the general population.
2.4.- Academic studies: Judicial Psychology (Testimony and Jury):
In the application of Judicial Psychology the psychologist works in the evaluation of the juries, as well as investigating the decision-making processes, social influence, etc.
Another field where numerous studies have emerged has been that of Testimony, this is the set of knowledge based on the results of research in the fields of Psychology Experimental and Social Psychology try to determine the quality (accuracy and credibility) of the testimonies that the witnesses provide about crimes, accidents or everyday events. face-to-face.
These areas are the ones that have had the most academic development and the greatest number of investigations have been carried out, as they have the impulse and support of the university world.
2.5.- Social Services:
Within this area, we must not forget the work performed by psychologists working in the Social Services of the Autonomous Communities, which since 1987 have been assigned all powers related to the protection and guardianship of minors in distress or danger, promoting the files related to Foster Care and Adoption of Minors Likewise, they are entrusted with the task of putting into practice the Educational Project that the Juvenile Court has deemed appropriate for the Reform Minors, whose files it processes.
2.6.- Prison Psychology:
She has been the pioneer in this field and understands the performance of the psychologist within penitentiary institutions developing classification tasks of inmates in specific modules, progressions and regressions of grade, study of the granting of prison leave, of pardons, etc. They also take care of the general organization of the center, study the social climate, carry out group and individual treatments, etc.
2.7.- Mediation:
Mediation is an alternative to the traditional way of going to court in search of a solution. The solution does not come from outside, but is carried out by the parties in conflict themselves with the help of an impartial third party, the mediator, who tries to help them to reach consensual agreements that allow them a peaceful solution to the situation conflictive. The basis of this new technique is in a different way of understanding individual-society relations, sustained by self-determination and responsibility that lead to cooperative behavior and peaceful.
Currently this technique is used in various conflicts: labor, criminal, civil, commercial, administrative, police intervention, decision-making in organizations, etc. In Spain, mediation has developed mainly in the family sphere.
2.8.- Psychology applied to the Courts:
The Psychology Applied to the Courts or Forensic Psychology refers to those activities that the Psychologist can carry out in the "FORUM".
J. Urra (93) defines Forensic Psychology as the science that teaches the application of all branches and knowledge of Psychology before the questions of Justice, and cooperates at all times with the Administration of Justice, acting in the forum (court), improving the exercise of the Right.
We can consider that in this field is where Spanish psychologists have achieved greater recognition, first thanks to their work as experts from the private sphere and second as workers on the staff of the Administration of Justice destined for the Juvenile, Family, Penitentiary Surveillance Courts and the Clinics Medical-Forensic.
The work as experts is regulated in the civil field in the Civil Procedure Law by articles 335 to 352, and in the criminal sphere in the Criminal Procedure Law, in articles 456 to 485.
The experts are third parties with specialized knowledge called to the process to provide a special knowledge that the Judge, being a A specialist in the Law does not have to possess, necessary for the perception and appreciation of facts that could not be captured without such knowledge special.
The psychologist in family law.
Law 30/81, of July 7, introduced in the Civil Code an auxiliary instrument of prosecution, the "opinion of specialists", in relation to measures to be adopted on the care and education of children, noting that "the judge ex officio or at the request of the interested parties, may obtain the opinion of specialists ".
The most common cases on which we will have to carry out a psychological evaluation in family law are: the attribution of Guardianship and Custody and the Design of the Visiting Regime most appropriate to the case study.
An expert report for a family court consists of an expert opinion on what measure will be best for a child in the event of a separation from parents, or at least which will be the least detrimental to their development and psychosocial balance.
Parent-child relationships can pass from normality, if the parents are clear about the separation and there is dialogue as parents, until the total rejection of the children towards the non-custodian, if the level of rivalry and hostility between the parents is high and involves the children.
The psychologist in the criminal field.
The request for intervention as an expert in the criminal field can reach the psychologist from any of the competent jurisdictional bodies: Courts of Instruction, Criminal Matters, Provincial Courts, etc.
In Criminal Law, two groups can be distinguished on which the expert can deal with. The first is the group of defendants or offenders. The second group, progressively important, is that of victims of the alleged crime.
In the first, we can be asked in a simplistic way a "psychological test" or in a more elaborate way "personality profile", "if there is psychopathology in her psyche", "mental deterioration", "drug addiction and affectation of her personality", and in the case of defendants, the question will always be directed to "are the bases affected of her imputability, that is, she knows reality and is free to act in accordance with that knowledge?".
As for crime victims, we are often asked to assess their current emotional state in relation to the alleged crime, consequences that may have remained in the emotional order and prognosis in the evolution of these aftermath. In the cases of minors involved in sexual abuse, the expert psychologist is usually asked for his ability to testify, the credibility of their testimony and the psychosocial consequences derived from her crime.
The psychologist in the jurisdiction of minors.
As a precedent of the intervention of the psychologist in the Juvenile Courts, it should be noted that the 1948 Law included the functions of the psychologist in its article 73. At the end of the 1980s, the old Juvenile Courts began to be transformed into the current Juvenile Courts, assisted by a judge of career, as of this year the positions of the Technical Teams of the Juvenile Courts made up of Psychologists, Social Workers and Educators.
The Organic Law 4/1992 legally recognizes the functions that the Technical Teams had been developing in recent years, the team report being mandatory, on the psychological, educational and family situation of the minor, as well as his social environment and in general on any other circumstance that may have influenced the fact attributed to him, extending his intervention to the different phases of the process.
And with the entry into force of Organic Law 5/2000, regulating the criminal responsibility of minors, the intervention of the Technical Team has been strengthened.
The psychologist in the prison surveillance court.
The tasks of the psychologists in this judicial body will be those of issue reports prior to the resolution of permit resources, degrees and favorable prognosis of social reintegration in probation records, as well as opinions prior to the reports that must periodically issue the Judge addressed to the sentencing Court to monitor the execution of measures of safety.
Usually to the psychologist you are asked to report on inmates who have committed serious or very serious crimes, sexual assaults and homicides or murders, mainly due to social alarm and the effects that the commission of new crimes would produce,
The reason that would justify the existence of professionals attached to the Penitentiary Surveillance Court is to provide it with its own, autonomous and independent advisory team to report on the situation of the inmate, not having to have another contact with the prisoner as the prison psychologist who will work on his evaluation and treatment.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to The role of the psychologist in the legal field, we recommend that you enter our category of Legal psychology.
