La psicología criminalista en España: Presente y futuro / Criminal psychology in Spain: present and future

En el marco de la Psicología Jurídica, tal como se entiende en España, cabe distinguir las aplicaciones de los conocimientos de la ciencia psicológica según los diferentes momentos del proceso penal: en las dependencias policiales durante las investigaciones criminales, en los Juzgados cuando ya se han identificado y detenido a los autores de delitos, y en los Establecimientos Penitenciarios cuando resultan finalmente condenados. En este trabajo se argumenta que cuando la psicología ayuda a la investigación criminal en los primeros de los momentos del proceso judicial, las actuaciones policiales, estaremos hablando de Psicología Criminalista a dos niveles: operativo (el más propio) y estratégico (en el que pueden participar otros profesionales). Tras describir sus peculiaridades y ámbitos concretos, en analogía con los apoyos que también prestan otras ciencias criminalísticas, se explica que en España esta especialidad se desarrolla profesionalmente desde dentro de las propias instituciones policiales, con un perfil muy distinto al de la más tradicional Psicología Policial, y en estrecha colaboración con el entorno académico en lo que se refiere al desarrollo científico de sus técnicas y procedimientos

As part of legal psychology, as it is understood in Spain, we can distinguish between the applications of psychology in the different steps of the judicial process: in police stations during criminal investigations, in court when the perpetrators have already been identified and arrested, and in prisons where they are eventually sent after being convicted. This paper argues that when psychology assists the criminal investigation in the first step of the judicial process - the police activities-, we are talking about criminal psychology, at two levels: the operational level (mostly pertaining to criminal psychology) and the strategic level (shared with other areas of expertise). After describing its peculiarities and specific areas, in analogy with the support provided by other forensic sciences, here we explain that in Spain this specialty is professionally developed from within our own police forces, with a profile which is very different from the more traditional police psychology, and in close collaboration with the academic environment regarding the scientific development of techniques and procedures

Obstacles to research in residential juvenile justice facilities: recommendations for researchers.

Federal, state, and local initiatives to improve the treatment and outcomes for young people in the juvenile justice system prompt the need for additional research. Despite the call for empirical data, researchers encounter numerous obstacles when initiating and conducting studies in detention and post-adjudication facilities. These obstacles are often only briefly mentioned in publications, but they can interfere with researchers' desires and abilities to conduct studies in these settings. This paper reviews legal, ethical, and methodological challenges to successfully conducting research in detention and residential post-adjudication placements, including selecting and accessing appropriate facilities, obtaining institutional review board approval, seeking parental permission and youth assent, reporting child abuse and neglect, responding to participants' threats to harm self or others, working effectively with facilities, juvenile justice system-related attrition, and the dissemination of research findings. Recommendations are presented to help investigators anticipate obstacles when designing and executing research protocols to prevent interference and to encourage ethical responses and successful study completion.

Human liberation: removing biological and psychological barriers to freedom.

In this article, the author argues that there are psychological and biological constraints on our moral behaviour, rational decision-making and capacities to love. For example, low oxytocin levels can constrain our willingness to cooperate with others, and our capacity to maintain long-term loving relationships. There is also evidence that increasing iodine intake can improve a person's general intelligence, while drugs such as Modafinil can enhance cognitive performance. Savulescu argues that we have a moral obligation to remove those constraints, and that we ought to accept these methods of improving our moral behaviour, decision-making, and cognitive functioning.

When nurses do the unthinkable.

This series explores the reasons why some nurses abuse or even kill the patients in their care and asks why such unthinkable behaviour is so difficult to understand.

Dangerous and severe personality disorder: an ethical concept?

Most clinicians and mental health practitioners are reluctant to work with people with dangerous and severe personality disorders because they believe there is nothing that mental health services can offer. Dangerous and severe personality disorder also signals a diagnosis which is problematic morally. Moral philosophy has not found an adequate way of dealing with personality disorders. This paper explores the question: What makes a person morally responsible for his actions and what is a legitimate mitigating factor? How do psychiatric nurses working with this client group understand the awful things some clients do? What concepts do they need, if they are to know how to explain and how to react? It is suggested that dangerous and severe personality disorder is best regarded as a moral category, framed in terms of goodness, badness, obligation and other ethical concepts. It seems plausible that in important ways the dangerous and severe personality disordered client does not understand morality or understands it differently. The peculiar position of the dangerous and severe personality disordered individual in our system of moral responsibility stems from his apparent inability to see the importance of the interests of others. It might be more helpful to regard personality disordered clients as we do children: partially but not fully reasonable for their actions. We might regard the dangerous and severe personality disordered client responsible for those actions which he most clearly understands, such as causing others physical pain, but not for those with which he is only superficially engaged, such as causing emotional pain. The paper concludes by suggesting that the dangerous and severe personality disordered individual does not fit easily into any conventional moral category, be it criminal, patient, animal or child, and thus an assessment of his moral accountability must take into consideration his special circumstances.