David Roberts's Reviews > Forensic Psychology: A Very Short Introduction

The book I read to research this post was Forensic Psychology A Very Short Introduction by David Canter which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. There are very few books which look at this subject in a general way. Most books look at 1 particular aspect of the subject. Also many books which claim to be about Forensic Psychology are in fact about Criminology. In America these subjects overlap more than in Britain. Forensic Psychology tends to be about the mind of the offender and whether they knew they were breaking the law. Criminology tends to be about things like poverty and how that influenced them to break the law. A person who specializes in Forensic Psychology is usually called a Clinical Psychologist. In Britain in the 1880's a person tried to shoot Sir Robert Peel & missed and shot his personal secretary who although the wound wasn't all that serious, it got infected and he died. This person was then charged with murder but he got away with it by reason of insanity. There was a public outcry with even Queen Victoria complaining about the verdict. After this they changed the law so that if someone committed a crime but was mentally ill they had to prove that person didn't know the difference between right and wrong when they committed the crime. Although you hear that a lot of murderers have schizophrenia, most people who suffer with that are only maybe a danger to themselves when ill. One big exception is schizophrenics who take recreational drugs who often are dangerous. Other aspects of Forensic Psychology are that someone maybe underage or have learning difficulties. In Britain & America the age at which someone is deemed responsible is 10. Interestingly in Brazil it's 18 & in India just 7.