Investigative Psychology

Investigative psychology is the application of psychological knowledge, methodology, and theory to reasoning about criminal activities and the investigative process as well as to criminal and civil judicial proceedings. Its emergence is largely due to a fruitful interplay between scientific research and application. Investigative psychologists regularly assist the police and other agencies with their investigations, and this interaction shapes the academic and theoretical endeavors of the field. David Canter coined the term investigative psychology during the early 1990s to describe the growing contributions several British psychologists were making to policing.

Since the early 1990s, the focus of investigative psychology has grown to capture a wide range of topics in investigation. These include attempting to provide cogent information about an offender's likely characteristics, advising on the structure of an investigation and decision making, guiding the interviews of witnesses and suspects, assessing the veracity of testimony, and debriefing investigators after the event. The scope of investigative psychology overlaps with, but is distinct from, that of forensic psychology, which centers more on the treatment of offenders after the penal judicial process is complete. The scope of [Page 822]investigative psychology also embraces a range of disciplines and research methodologies from fields as diverse as sociology, geography, and computer science. Nonetheless, the central focus is on the psychological processes—usually cognitive processes—that can assist an investigation. This focus is set apart from other influences by its distinct effort to base contributions on inferences from rigorous empirical analysis of the available data.