Police psychology

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Police psychology is a branch of forensic psychology that deals with questions of police practice . Police psychology include a. the areas of forensic psychology and criminal psychology, which are often used as synonymous terms . Police psychology can also be described as part of applied psychology. On the one hand, police psychology is practiced by police psychologists; on the other hand, the term also describes psychological content that is used by police officers.

Fields of activity

The police psychological tasks of police psychologists include crisis management , dealing with large crowds and mentally disturbed people, hostage-taking and other cases of serious violent crime . Other topics are interrogation techniques, de-escalation strategies and checking the credibility of witness statements. Another important aspect are questions of personnel selection and development for police officers and their psychosocial support. The operative case analysis is also carried out in part by police psychologists, but most of the case analysts are specially trained, experienced criminologists .

history

The Social Democratic Interior Minister Carl Severing business 1920-1926 in the Free State of Prussia , the democratization of the police and began using psychological findings into practical policing to. Severing's model for police practice was the concept of a police force as a life profession, which he described as follows: "The more the police officer becomes an economist, sociologist and, last but not least, psychologist, the easier it will be for him to fulfill his mission." From 1933, however, such approaches were no longer in demand. From 1963, the Munich police chief Manfred Schreiber followed police psychological approaches . Under him, the Munich police began to pursue less confrontational intervention strategies against public political protests. As a consequence of the Schwabing riots , in January 1964 Schreiber hired Rolf Umbach, Germany's first police psychologist for the Munich city police . Schreiber also developed the "Munich Line". Mass protests and unrest should be prevented in advance if possible. Should this not succeed, one wanted to rely on psychological persuasion tactics. What was required was greater composure towards unconventional behavior on the part of the young people and refrain from spectacular violence. Since Schreiber considered the Schwabing riots to be a “mass psychotic event”, he gave police psychologists an advisory role for the first time in management and operational issues.

Today the use of police psychologists has established itself in the entire German-speaking area, and a corresponding professional profile has been established. In English-speaking countries there is also the job description of the police psychologist with corresponding courses, e.g. B. at Leicester University , the University of Liverpool (both Great Britain) or Griffith University (Australia). The Society for Police and Criminal Psychology is also active in English-speaking countries . Forensic psychology has also been offered as a master’s degree in Legal Psychology (Master of Science) at the Faculty of Applied Psychology at the SRH University of Heidelberg since 2013 .

Facilities (selection)

  • State Office for Education, Training and Personnel Matters of the North Rhine-Westphalia Police , Selm
  • Central Psychological Service of the Bavarian Police in Munich
  • Central Police Psychological Service of the Hessian Police (ZPD)
  • Criminal psychology service of the Austrian Federal Criminal Police Office

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hannu Turba: Social sensitivity in the professional world of police officers between programmatic requirements and everyday relevance. In: Tobias Sander: Habitus sensitivity: A new requirement for professional action. Springer-Verlag, 2014.
  2. ^ Klaus Weinhauer: Controlling Control Institutions. Policing Collective Protests in 1960s West Germany. In: Wilhelm Heitmeyer et al. (Ed.): Control of Violence. Historical and International Perspectives on Violence in Modern Societies. Springer, NY 2011, p. 222.
  3. ↑ Association of Police Psychologists in Switzerland (short: APPS)
  4. ^ Society for Police and Criminal Psychology
  5. ^ Legal Psychology - SRH University Heidelberg. In: hochschule-heidelberg.de. www.hochschule-heidelberg.de, accessed on October 7, 2015 .

literature

  • Main focus on police psychology. Praxis der Rechtsspsychologie 9 (1), 1999. ( online )
  • Helmut Kury, Joachim Obergfell-Fuchs: Legal Psychology , Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-17-016932-6 .
  • Frank Stein: Basics of police psychology. Hogrefe Verlag, 2003. ISBN 3801717267
  • Max Hermanutz, Christiane Ludwig, Hans Peter Schmalzl: Modern police psychology in key terms. Boorberg, 2001. ISBN 9783415046207