An overview of psychology and law and forensic psychology in Australia

Abstract

Psychology’s roots in Australia go back to 1881, but the first documented evidence of psychology-and-law (psycholegal) research and psychologists working in court and correctional settings only emerged in 1949. The activities of psycholegal researchers and psychologists providing services to the correction, investigative and justice systems are not well-documented. Our aim in this paper is to start recording the histories of these people and the development of the psycholegal and forensic psychology fields. We do this primarily by examining publications and conference papers and recording our and other people’s personal recollections. We specifically record psychologists’ interaction with lawyers, their concerns about professional and ethical issues and the teaching of forensic psychology. We finally give a brief overview of the current state of the two fields. 1 Pre-publication copy of paper published the October 2018 Newsletter of the Division 10 (Psychology and Law) of the International Association of Applied Psychology. PSYCHOLOGY AND LAW IN AUSTRALIA 2 Psychology and Law and Forensic Psychology in Australia The roots of psychology in Australia go back to Henry Laurie’s arrival in 1881, but the discipline remained unorganised until the Australian Association of Psychology and Philosophy (AAPP) was formed in 1923 (Cooke, 2000). Psychology as a profession officially commenced with the establishment of the Australian branch of the British Psychological Society in 1944 (Cooke, 2000) that became the Australian Psychological Society (APS) in 1966. We know anecdotally that psychologists were working and doing research related to law, which we define to include the correction, investigative and justice systems, soon after the professionalization of psychology. We could, however, not find information about the psychologists involved, or their activities in the known histories of psychology (e.g., Cooke, 2000; O'Neil, 1982, 1987). Our aim in this paper is to start recording the history of psychology-and-law (psycholegal) research and forensic psychological practice in Australia. We intend doing this by examining mostly Australian publications, conference programs and psychologists’ personal recollections that shed light on the work of researchers and psychologists and specifically record their interaction with lawyers, concerns about professional and ethical issues and the development of research and teaching programs. We finally give a brief overview of the current state of the two fields. 2 We for the purpose of this paper define forensic psychology broadly as any psychological service provided to law, which we define to include the correction, investigative and justice systems because this is how forensic psychology is usually defined in Australia. We are aware of the ongoing conversation about the definition of forensic psychology (e.g., Neal, 2018; Thomson, 2013) and that the use of the title forensic psychologist is in Australia restricted to those who hold endorsement under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law Act (2009). 3 These included three of the authors (Allan, Cole and Thomson) who we will refer to in the third person to be consistent. PSYCHOLOGY AND LAW IN AUSTRALIA