Forensic Psychology For Dummies (74 page)

Aggressive/antisocial behaviour.

For adults, similar problems may be apparent, but because their involvement in the community at large is more demanding than for children, brain injury can be psychologically debilitating because it reduces the victim’s social contact, which may increase feelings of loneliness and related depression. These problems can remain long after the physical consequences of the injury have improved. Social isolation and decreased leisure activities create a renewed dependence on such victims’ families to meet these needs.

A very real fear is that these issues increase the likelihood of a person slipping into criminal behaviour (see the earlier section ‘Breaking the cycle: Criminals becoming victims and victims becoming criminals’).

Consequences of traumatic brain injury that can increase the susceptibility to committing criminal acts are:

Decrease in friendships and social support.

Lack of opportunity for establishing new social contacts and friends.

Reduced leisure activities.

Anxiety and depression for prolonged periods of time.

A particularly important effect of severe brain trauma is the loss of memory, known as
post-traumatic amnesia.
This problem can affect victims, making it difficult for them to help a police inquiry into the nature and cause of the trauma (and is sometimes claimed by offenders as a reason for being unable to give any account of what they did). This memory loss is typically exhibited as a state of confusion or disorientation. Victims may be unable to say their names, where they are or the time or day of the week. (Skip to Chapter 9 to see how forensic psychologists assess whether amnesia is genuine or faked.)

The loss of memories can be those that were formed shortly before the injury. This loss may only exist for an hour or so, or the person may never be able to remember what happened just before the injury. They may also have problems in creating new memories after the injury has taken place. In some cases this inability to form further memories may not develop until several hours after the injury. Awareness of these processes is crucial for any therapy a psychologist may attempt to carry out with a victim. They may not wish to face up to what they experienced or they may genuinely forget it because of the brain trauma. So knowledge of these processes is relevant to everyone who works with victims: police, social workers and the courts.

Criminals’ awareness of post-traumatic amnesia can be drawn on as a defence. They can claim they can’t remember what happened leading up to the crime or soon after. It can be very difficult to determine if this is genuine memory loss or not (as I make clear in Chapter 9 where I describe how memory loss is assessed). Assessment requires a full understanding of how memory works and what’s likely to be forgotten and what not. Forensic psychologists with this special knowledge may be called in to determine if the defendant is malingering or really is a victim of a crime.

Of course, even if he can’t remember what happened, the person can still be convicted of the crime. This was the case with John Duffy (which is described in some detail in Chapter 6) who was convicted of murder and rape in 1986. He claimed he had been a victim of an attack, showing a wound to support this, and said that consequently he could not remember anything around the time of the crimes he was accused of. An associate came forward to say Duffy had asked him to attack him in order to provide support for Duffy’s denial of any memory, but still for many years Duffy claimed he had no memory of the assaults he was eventually convicted of. A psychotherapist counselled him in prison apparently helping him, after he had been incarcerated for 14 years, to remember that he’d had an associate David Mulcahey, who Duffy claimed, had been the prime mover in carrying out the murders. Mulcahey strongly denied this but forensic evidence taken together with Duffy’s memories led to Mulcahey being convicted of murder.

So for a forensic psychologist to disentangle whether a person is a victim or a perpetrator or both does require a detailed understanding of the effects of suffering various sorts of crimes.

Assessing the Psychological Effects of a Crime on a Victim

Psychologists, whether they’re general clinical psychologists who provide therapy for many different types of patients with mental health problems, or more specialist forensic psychologists who are helping victims, along with family doctors, psychiatrists and other professionals (even the local priest), may also be called on to assess the extent of the effect of the experience of a crime. This may be done to determine how the therapy should be conducted and to identify the particular problems that the victim needs help with.

But assessment of the victim of a crime may also be carried out to establish exactly what the effects are, so that other forms of help beyond counselling and psychological therapy can be provided. This can include compensation from the state or the culprit or from insurance or other forms of support for disabilities. These assessments often require psychological expertise as well as medical expertise. The forensic psychologist assesses the victim in much the same way as if the person had had an accident. Although crimes generate fears and anxieties that may not be so prevalent as a consequence of accidents, the psychological issues are very similar.

Part of the challenge of making accurate assessments about crime victims is that sometimes the person wants to appear as damaged as possible, perhaps to increase the chance (or amount) of an insurance payment. In addition, in court cases, the victims may be determined to ensure that culprits are seen to have caused deep psychological damage and thus avoid the judge or jury being lenient. Consequently, psychologists assessing the victim have to find ways of determining the true nature of the situation. Psychological processes, however, can further complicate this. Victims may not be fully aware of the extent to which they’re trying to reassure themselves that they’re really suffering as much as they think they are as a result of the crime.

Here are the main ways in which forensic psychologists assess the experience of a crime victim: