Those who prefer a narrow definition of forensic psychology do not typically include police psychology in its purview. We have done so because police are sworn to uphold the law and are in many cases the gatekeepers to entry into criminal and juvenile courts, if not civil courts. Thus, psychologists who consult with police in
Lewis Terman (1917) was the first American psychologist to use “mental tests” as screening devices in the selection of law enforcement personnel. On October 31, 1916, at the request of the city manager of San Jose, California, he administered an abbreviated form of the Stanford-Binet to 30 police and fire department applicants. They ranged in
In the years between the two world wars, psychologists gradually became more involved in the screening of law enforcement personnel and began to incorporate personality assessment into that enterprise. Wilmington, Delaware, and Toledo, Ohio, appear to share the distinction of being the first two cities to require ongoing psychological screening for use in police selection
In the early years of the 20th century, psychologists began to offer psychological perspectives on criminal behavior and to speculate about the causes of crime. Like the police psychology discussed earlier, criminal psychology typically is not considered in the narrow definitions of forensic psychology, primarily because it appears more theoretical than clinical in nature. However
Legal psychology refers to psychological theory, research, and practice directly pertinent to the law and legal issues. It focuses on psycholegal research and contacts with judges, lawyers, and other law-related professionals in a wide range of contexts. The origins of legal psychology can be traced to the work of experimental psychologists in Europe in the
Pinpointing the origins of courtroom testimony by psychologists in Europe is not easy. Sources differ, often depending on the nature of the forum (e.g., civil versus criminal court, preliminary hearing versus trial) or its context (informal conversation with a judge versus formal testimony). Hale (1980) suggests that the earliest testimony by a psychologist in a
It is generally believed that American psychologists have served as expert witnesses since the early 1920s (Comment, 1979), but, like their European counterparts, they consulted with lawyers and the courts, perhaps particularly the civil courts, before that time. Included in this latter category are the juvenile courts, which were a hybrid of the civil and
During the years in which Munsterberg was proselytizing about psychology’s usefulness in the courtroom, particularly involving expert testimony, another American psychologist was more quietly making inroads into a different forensic area, one specifically related to juvenile courts. As we noted earlier, consultation with these courts was common, but it was chiefly in the area of
Lindner (1955) pinpointed 1913 as the date when psychological services were first offered in a U.S. correctional facility, specifically a women’s reformatory in the state of New York. Watkins (1992) identified the psychologist as Eleanor Rowland, who was asked to devise a test battery to identify offenders who would benefit from educational programs and be
The history of cross-cultural psychology, broadly defined, started with Herodotus in the fifth century BC. In fact, two excellent histories, Klineberg (1980), and Jahoda and Krewer (1996), note that Herodotus had the insight that all humans are ethnocentric. This is a basic aspect of the human condition, because most humans are limited to knowing only