LECTURE #1 - Intro to Police Psychology

what is police psych?

• psychological services to and on behalf of police agencies, their executives and employees

• application of psychology to policing

• research done with or on behalf of the police to inform applied practice

status of the field

• books and journals dedicated to the field

• specialty discipline

• professional associations

what do police psychologists do? (4)

• assessment

• intervention

• operational

• consulting

assessment (know general premise)

• job analysis

• pre-employment evals

• fitness for duty evals

• evals for FMLA eligibility

• evals for accomodations

• eval for high risk assessments

• assessment-related consulation

intervention (know general premise)

• employee assistance counseling

• individual therapy

• group/family/couple therapy

• critical incident early intervention

• critical incident therapy

• counseling for unique stressors

• disability recovery

• intervention related consultation

operational (know general premise)

• psychological intelligence

• criminal profiling

• psycholgical autopsies

• crisis negotation

• counterterrorism

• counterintelligence

• indirect assessment

• operations related consulation

consulting (know general premise)

• developing performance appraisal systems

• organizatonal development

• executive consultation

• management consultation

• supervisor consulation

• process consultation

• mediation

• consulting-related research

breaking confidentialty

• determine who the client is and establish clear roles and responsibilities

• make exceptions when required

competence

• provide services and use techniques in which you are qualified by training and experience

• psychologists stay current with respect to scientific and professional info

multiple roles

• when a psychologist has more than one relationship with a client

respecting basic rights

• avoid involvement in police actions that apear to be unlawful or unethical

goal of ebp (evidence based policing)

• what works in policing

• for the purpose of sound policing, strategies, policies and/or programs

how to accomplish the goal

• move away from decision based policing on un-tested assumptions

  • ex., experience

  • anecdote

  • gut instinct

  • “it’s what we’ve always done'“

range of methods

• used to develop evidence

  • spatial-temporal crime mapping

  • surveys

  • qualitiative interviews

  • observational field research

  • systematic literature reviews

  • mixed methods

how to accomplish the goal

• randomized control trials

• gold standard

triple t strategy (the three t’s)

• targeting

• testing

• tracking

the three t’s: targeting

• identifying a high priority policing problem

the three t’s: testing

• tested through scientific research to make sure they work

the three t’s: tracking

• solutions should be tracked over time

• ensure they continue to work and when needed make changes

  • not very good

key elements of ebp

• research must be usable

  • relevant and accessible to police community

• involve police in the research process

• identify what works

• realms of effectiveness can also be examined

what prevents ebp

• info about effectiveness not available or research is available but irrelevant

• info available but knowledge translation/transfer hasn’t occurred

• organisational cultures and systems reinforce tradition

two tools to determine what works:

• ebp matrix

• crime reduction toolkit

EBP matrix

• moderate to rigorous evaluation studies

ebp matrix categorization (3):

• type

• proactivity

• specificity

type

• who is being targeted from ind. to nations

proactivity

• how proactive vs reactive strategy is

specificity

• how general vs focused strategy is

crime reduction toolkit

• based on emmie

  • effect

  • mechanism

  • moderators

  • implementation

  • economic assessment

crime reduction toolkit/EMMIE: effect

• the impact of strategy on crime

crime reduction toolkit/EMMIE: mechanism

• how the strategy works

crime reduction toolkit/EMMIE: moderators

• circumstances where the strategy works best

crime reduction toolkit/EMMIE: implementation

• how to implement the strategy

crime reduction toolkit/EMMIE: economic assessment

• how much implementation costs