Lie detection, offender profiling, jury selection, insanity in the law, predicting the risk of re-offending, the minds of serial killers, and many other topics that fill news and fiction are all aspects of the rapidly developing area of scientific psychology broadly known as forensic psychology.
This fascinating Very Short Introduction discusses all the aspects of psychology that are relevant to the legal and criminal process as a whole. It includes explanations of criminal behavior and criminality, including the role of mental disorder in crime, and it reveals how forensic psychology contributes to helping investigate the crime and catching the perpetrators. David Canter also explains how psychologists provide guidance to all those involved in civil and criminal court proceedings, including both the police and the accused, and what expert testimony can be provided by a psychologist about the offender at the trial. Finally, Canter describes how forensic psychology is used, particularly in prisons, to help in the management, treatment, and rehabilitation of offenders, once they have been convicted.
In 1994, after many years of movies and television portraying the evil side of the human psyche, Dr. David Canter published Criminal Shadows. Two decades on, its revolutionary descriptions of psychological profiling still helps to explain the actions of serial killers and psychopaths.
These techniques can help police precisely identify and locate murderers and rapists, even those who have alluded capture for years.
Dr. David Canter was a British pioneer in the psychological science of criminal profiling. In prose which takes a clear, structured approach to his subject, he reveals how vicious serial killers and rapists unconsciously cast shadows of their identity at the crime scene. The tell-tale patterns, when scientifically understood, can help police capture these brutal offenders. He also explains the types of criminality and victims.
Criminal Shadows leads the listener through Dr. Canter's breakthrough profiling techniques, now adopted by a growing number of police forces throughout the world. Anyone with an interest in psychology or criminal justice should listen to this book, as should fans of television forensic programs.
Criminals reveal who they are and where they live not just from how they commit their crimes, but also from the locations they choose.
This is the claim of renowned criminal psychologist and profiler David Canter. In this groundbreaking book, now fully revised and updated, Canter leads us into the labyrinthine psyche of serial killers, rapists, and other violent criminals, and reveals how geographical profiling is changing the way police work and our understanding of the criminal mind.
From Jack the Ripper to Fred West's house of horror and the recent Suffolk murders, Canter analyzes the geographical maps of killers' actions and the psychological maps of their thoughts to provide a fascinating insight into the most notorious criminals of all time.
