1 OVERVIEW OF FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY

Abstract

3 The term “forensic” refers to matters that pertain to courts or to law, both civil and criminal. Forensic science involves the application of scientific knowledge to legal problems. Today, virtually all branches of the natural and social sciences have made this application. Psychology, the science of behavior, is no exception. The forensic sciences as a whole have become popular career choices among students, and many scientific professions now have forensic specialties. In addition to forensic psychology, we have, for example, forensic engineering, forensic medicine, forensic pathology, forensic anthropology, forensic archaeology, forensic psychiatry, and forensic social work. Nonscientific professions, such as accounting and linguistics, also have forensic specialties. The focus of each discipline is evident from the terms. Forensic anthropology, for example, refers to the identification of skeletal, badly decomposed, or otherwise unidentified human remains. Forensic linguistics is concerned with the in-depth evaluation of language-related characteristics of text, such as grammar, syntax, spelling, vocabulary, and phraseology, either to profile an offender or to determine whether specific writing samples are from the same author (Black, 1990). Forensic pathology is the branch of medicine concerned with diseases and disorders of the body that relate to questions that might come before the court. The forensic pathologist examines the bodies of crime victims for clues about the victim’s demise. Popularized in a number of television shows, the work of the