Gauging psychological effects of trauma, personal injury, product liability, harassment and professional negligence.
Reviewing judgements made about behavioural material, such as offensive communications.
Depending on the jurisdiction, forensic psychologists can also offer the same sort of help and expertise in criminal cases.
With victims
Forensic psychologists provide help to victims by:
Educating and assisting those who are responsible for notifying relatives of a victim’s death.
Treating victims or witnesses of crime.
Training people who supply services to victims.
In prisons, ‘special hospitals’ and correctional institutions
The sorts of tasks that forensic psychologists carry out in institutions include:
Helping to select personnel for employment in the prisons.
Providing support, especially in stress management, for those working in institutions.
Evaluating programmes in use or proposed programmes for helping offenders from re-offending, such as the anger management and sexual awareness programmes I describe in Part V.
Contributing to decisions about how prisoners are classified and suitable placements in appropriate institutions or on the different sorts of programmes I discuss in Chapters 13 to 16.
With the police
Forensic psychologists sometimes do the following in criminal investigations:
Give guidance on the search for an unknown offender.
Train and assist in interviews of victims, witnesses and suspects.
Advise on dealing with mentally ill people.
