An appraisal of investigative psychology and the applications to suspicious approaches to children in the Irish criminal justice system

Abstract

Policymakers have a duty to base their decision making in the best available evidence relevant to the question at hand. This paper discusses why it is important for policymakers to recognize the valuable contributions to be made from within the fields of investigative and forensic psychology and particularly to inform the process of policymaking and legislative frameworks currently in place regarding suspicious approaches to children offences in the Irish Criminal Justice System. Discrepancies between legal and psychological considerations infer potential issues with policymaking; resulting in evidence‐based concerns regarding how suspicious approaches to children are handled. It is argued that in cases of suspicious approaches to children, important research is available within the fields of investigative and forensic psychology that warrants adequate consideration by policymakers. Additionally, the need for further collaboration between policymakers, researchers and front‐line enforcement agencies to ensure evidence‐based approaches for dealing with suspicious approaches to children and other criminal behaviours within the Irish criminal justice system is highlighted.

Behavioural Evidence Analysis

“…Geographically based techniques (Almond et al, 2019;Butkovic, Mrdovic, Uludag, & Tanovic, 2019) Establishes a relation between environment and crime trends, to understand community population This understanding helps gain an insight into individual's profile Investigative Psychology techniques (O'Meara, Coyne, & Brassil, 2019;Youngs, 2017) Utilizes extensive professional research for creating profile and determining strategies for analyzing crime scene This theory believes that every crime committed has certain characteristics connected to the behaviour of individuals Psychologically based techniques (M. K. Rogers, 2016) This technique also uses crime scenes for analysis but in different context. It employs observable behaviour to create psychological background Criminal investigative analysis (Almond, McManus, Giles, & Houston, 2017;Lehmann, Goodwill, Hanson, & Dahle, 2016;Wang et al, 2018) Appoints psychological techniques to arrange information in sequences and finally construct a profile Several factors, like elements at site of crime and behaviour at time of event can represent the offender's personality and motivations Suspect-based techniques (Johnson & King, 2017;Legewie, 2016) Derives data from personality and behavioural data of previous offenders It considers factors like ethnicity, religion, race, age, manner of dress and patterns of suspicious behaviour…”