Forensic or sometimes called forensic psychology is a set of psychological subdisciplines of applied psychology within the legal or judicial system. Forensic psychologists may deal not only with issues related to criminal psychology, which is actually a subdiscipline of forensic psychology, but also with other issues within civil legal proceedings. Finally, forensic psychologists may also deal with the treatment of institutionalized court-adjudicated offenders. Forensic psychology is present in various areas of social life.
In some countries, forensic psychologists also engage in criminal profiling, in which they attempt to identify suspects for a criminal offense, using information collected from crime scenes. In our judicial system, forensic psychologists (who are most often referred to as “court experts”), as part of investigative actions, engage in profiling the personalities of suspects or potential victims of committed criminal offenses. Suspect personality profiling is mainly carried out in investigative proceedings, which are most often conducted by prosecutors’ offices. Occasionally, courts that have confirmed the indictment against identified suspects also request the profiling of suspects or victims, usually to confirm or refute the findings of court experts that were obtained during the investigative phase or to examine the procedural capacity of the accused. Criminal motivation and the judicial system are complex, so forensic psychologists also deal with various issues from the arrest of suspects to the analysis of crime scenes, victims of criminal offenses, or the competence of witnesses to testify during court proceedings, in the event that they are listed as witnesses to criminal offenses by judicial authorities. Forensic or forensic psychologists can be of great help in the investigation process itself and help identify suspects and potential victims more easily, i.e. help investigative authorities solve the case more quickly.
Not all legal processes need to be initiated before judicial authorities (prosecutors’ offices and courts), but certain social (most often family) problems can be resolved before social work institutions. Social work centers are responsible for divorce disputes, issues of granting custody to parents, and issues of protecting the rights of children and vulnerable categories of the population, where forensic psychologists can significantly contribute to the detection of certain problems and their treatment by the social community.
One of the more important roles of forensic psychologists could be in the so-called forensic psychological therapy or counseling, where forensic psychologists are called upon to state whether a person suffers from some mental disorders, so that forensic psychologists as court experts are called upon to testify before the court as “expert witnesses”, and as witnesses they can appear either in favor of the prosecution or in favor of the defense of the suspect or the accused. After the verdict is passed, forensic psychologists are engaged in the assessment and rehabilitation of perpetrators of criminal acts, determining the most effective types of treatment, and often actively participating in that treatment.
Psychopathology is a general term that refers to the explanation of mental disorders or psychological impairments in professional practice and scientific research. Psychopathology represents the scientific foundations of mental disorders, seeking to explain how mental illnesses or mental disorders affect human thinking and behavior. Forensic psychopathology combines psychopathology and the legal system or legal issues and helps in the application of psychopathological theories and practices within the framework of legal processes.
Forensic psychology, on the other hand, is a specialized field for the legal field, and focuses on the practice of clinical psychology. within the framework of forensic or judicial-procedural issues (e.g. divorce, assignment of custody, assessment of suitability for following court proceedings, assessment of psychological suitability for concluding legal transactions, etc.). Therefore, forensic psychology does not necessarily involve dealing with psychological disorders, but deals with detecting them within the framework of assessing the personality and abilities of persons involved in the civil legal system and does not necessarily have to be related to criminal psychology or forensic psychopathology.
Forensic psychology deals with the psychological assessment of persons who are in any way involved in the legal system (assessment of victims of criminal acts, accused or suspected persons, witnesses in proceedings, children and parents in divorce proceedings, adults in the context of their abilities to follow court proceedings, etc.). In particular, forensic psychologists – court experts are trained (or should be trained) in the following areas:
- Abuse of children and cases of custody award, ie assessment of parental competence;
- Reasonability (in a team with expert psychiatrists) and competence in terms of monitoring the course of court proceedings;
- Assessments of potential threats to the school environment;
- Assessment of victims of crime;
- Psychological evaluations of parties in court proceedings;
- Assessments and treatment of juvenile and younger adult delinquents
- Psychological counseling services
- Development of psychodiagnostic and treatment plans.
Forensic psychologists, or court experts, must be very familiar with the legal system, procedures, and laws in certain areas (Criminal Procedure Act, Criminal Code, Law on the Execution of Criminal Sanctions, Law on Civil Procedure; Law on the Protection and Treatment of Children and Minors in Criminal Proceedings; Family Law, Law on Protection from Domestic Violence, etc.). They are authorized to perform clinical assessments, conduct clinical-forensic interviews, and write findings and opinions, or reports, on the performed clinical-forensic-psychological assessments and scientific-expert research, which they usually document with a forensic-psychological report.
Forensic psychopathology focuses on accurate psychodiagnostics of mental illnesses in order to assess, diagnose, and identify the best treatment plan for the person being assessed, and the assessment of such persons must be testified in court by interpreting the findings obtained during the forensic-clinical assessment. The expert can thus analyze psychopathological indicators that affect reasoning and judgment during the commission of a crime (lat. in time of crime). Such data can be used to draw conclusions about whether the suspect is responsible for the crime and can be found guilty, or whether a mental disorder represents a clinically significant indicator when making a court decision (whether it is necessary to implement psychiatric and psychological treatment measures).
In understanding psychopathological phenomena and processes, the most important is the person’s ability to make decisions based on insight, then his/her ability to reason, conclude and system of moral values. Neurological disorders, mental illnesses, physiological conditions and medical conditions due to a certain diagnosis, including alcohol and psychoactive substance abuse, can impair the ability to control one’s actions. Such conditions can cause serious changes and difficulties in psychological functioning, i.e. they can affect strong emotional discharges with anger that can escalate into an explosive reaction, which in turn sometimes results in a fatal outcome.
The assessment of criminal responsibility is very important in court proceedings, so court experts – forensic psychologists and psychopathologists, together with forensic psychiatrists, help provide findings and opinions, or answers to the question of the degree of criminal responsibility of the suspect or accused. Our legal system recognizes this through the institute of “intellectual capacity”, and intelligibility itself is defined in brief as the inability of the perpetrator of a criminal offense to in time of crime (i.e., at the time of committing the crime) directs his actions due to the existence of psychopathological indicators that could absolve him of criminal responsibility. However, release from criminal liability due to insanity does not mean that the perpetrator of a criminal offense is released, as was once the case due to the lack of forensic institutions that would care for such perpetrators of criminal offenses (in BiH, this was perhaps even the only case in Europe that such forensic perpetrators of criminal offenses had nowhere to be housed and were then released to freedom). A person who is declared mentally incompetent should be placed in a forensic specialist institution for treatment, and therefore the final answer to the question of mental incompetence must be given by a court expert in the field of (neuro)psychiatry, and expert psychologists can assist in testing and assessing the perpetrator of a criminal offense in the process of expert examination or observation and provide a conclusion and their opinion on the person’s ability to manage their actions. in time of crime, but it must be “legally confirmed” by expert psychiatrists. In our legal system, there is also a degree of accountability, or the so-called. “significantly reduced accountability” which implies that the perpetrator of the criminal offense was significantly less able to manage his/her abilities due to psychopathological indicators – as a rule, in these cases, the perpetrator of the criminal offense is considered criminally responsible, a prison sentence is imposed, but in addition, a measure of mandatory treatment for mental illness (i.e. mandatory psychiatric treatment) or alcoholism or drug addiction is imposed, if alcoholism or drug addiction led to the commission of the criminal offense, i.e. if they can be directly linked to the commission of the crime and the mental state of the perpetrator at the time of the crime .
Reaching a final psychodiagnosis for various psychopathological conditions can be a very difficult and arduous process, especially when a person does not meet all the criteria for a diagnosis of a mental disorder according to existing classifications of mental illnesses. Observed psychopathological characteristics may influence provisional or differential psychodiagnosis, but psychopathological states with a definitive diagnosis cannot be defined if not all criteria listed in existing classifications of mental disorders are met, if symptoms are inconsistent, or if they last for a shorter period of time than suggested in the classifications.
Forensic psychopathology specifically relates to the commission of criminal acts, or rather the personalities of perpetrators and possibly victims of criminal acts. Of interest may be age, competence, illness, mental disorders and mental illnesses, as well as other factors taken into consideration when assessing perpetrators of criminal acts and their victims. This subdiscipline of forensic psychology deals with the understanding and scientific research of mental disorders and their impact on the behavioral and cognitive abilities of a person involved in a legal process, usually in a criminal trial (as a witness, victim/injured party, suspect/defendant), although it is not limited to criminal trials, but also extends to civil litigation, and possibly administrative and other judicial proceedings.