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POLICE PSYCHOLOGY:Fitness-for-Duty Evaluation (FFDE), False Confessions

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Forensic Psychology (PSY - 513)
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Lesson 05
POLICE PSYCHOLOGY
PSTR (Post Shooting Traumatic Response)
Along with many other task related, organization related and personal stressors, PSTR is also of great
importance, it is just like Post-traumatic stress disorder "that is an anxiety disorder that's triggered
by your memories of a traumatic event -- an event that directly affected you or an event that you
witnessed". In PSTR a policeman can experience a collection of emotions and psychological
response patterns that may occur after a police officer shoots a person in the line of duty" it is
more likely if the victim dies, like shooting a bank robber while he was about to shoot some innocent
victim. But remember not everyone involved in a traumatic and shooting event experiences post-
shooting stress disorder.
Symptoms of Post Shooting Traumatic Response (PSTR)
According to (Bartol & Bartol 2004 ) symptoms may include:
1. Perceptual distortions of time, sight and sound
2. Enhanced Sense of danger
3. Anger
4. Sleep difficulties
5. Isolation/ withdrawal
6. Flashbacks
Officers may be furious at the person they shot, their department, their colleagues, or society at general
for putting them in a position of having to shoot someone. Now the role of psychologist is again very
important to help such officers. Assessment is also automatically done after any police officer shoots a
person in the line of duty. The kind of psychological service provided here is generally of a more long-
term and continuously-monitored nature. So, some times they recommend employees involved in
shooting incidents frequently have to take a leave of absence and/or get assigned to "administrative
duties." The psychologist sometimes plays a role in determining if such an employee is ready to re-
assume their normal duties or not. More and more police departments are experimenting with peer
group counseling for shooting (critical) incidents.
Fitness-for-Duty Evaluation (FFDE)
Certain kinds of psychological assessments are done as a matter of standard procedure with some
aspects of police work. For example, SWAT team members and officers (Special Weapons and Tactics,
a unit that is trained and equipped to handle special, high-risk incidents) working undercover, narcotics,
vice, or internal affairs are frequently required to undergo some sort of periodic psychological
assessment to ensure they are "fit" to continue working in these high-stress positions. Normally, these
assessments are done on a yearly basis and an FFDE can usually be ordered by any upper-rank
employee on a lower-rank employee whenever the lower-rank employee engages in "suspicious"
behavior which brings up serious questions about whether they are fit to carry out public safety work or
not.
Procedure of fitness for duty evaluation
For on-duty assessment role of psychologist is very important, critical and difficult as FFDE requires a
much more intensive assessment than the pre-employment psychological screening evaluation. Fitness
for duty evaluations should be used with care and while working in the same department it is really
difficult to assess the co-workers especially when you have to report that person under assessment is not
fit for the duty.
The full ramp up required by an FFDE involves:
1. Psychological screening report
2.  Personality tests, cognitive and ability tests
3. Performance evaluations
4. Use of excessive force incidents (how much torture is exhibited?)
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Forensic Psychology (PSY - 513)
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5.
Formal complaints
6.
Shootings
7.
Medical records
8.
Frequent mental status exams
9.
An intensive background investigation
10.
The collection of testimonials by fellow officers
11.
Follow-up on citizen complaints
12.
Examination of medical records
13.
Internal affairs investigation
14.
Investigation of brain injuries
FFDE needs to be done with care and sophistication so; IACP (International Association of Chiefs
of Police) sets the following criteria for FFDE:
1. One or more citizen complaints regarding excessive force, inappropriate verbal conduct, or
inability to exercise self control and self discipline.
2. Abrupt and negative change in customary behavior.
3. Irrational verbal conduct or behaviors, including delusions and hallucinations.
4. Suicidal statements or behaviors, or personal expressions of mental instability.
5. Unexplained and excessive tiredness or hyperactivity.
6. Dramatic change in eating patterns, sudden weight loss or gain, diagnosis of life threatening
disorder.
7. Change in attention to personal hygiene and health.
8. Inappropriate use of alcohol, medications or other drugs, including symptoms of illegal drug
use.
9. Memory losses
10. Impatience or impulsiveness, especially with loss of temper.
11. Inability to defuse tense situations, or tendency to escalate situations and create confrontations.
12. Unexplained and inappropriate excessive lateness or absenteeism.
13. Any other factor or combinations of factors that causes a supervisor to reasonably suspect that a
fitness for duty evaluation may be necessary.
False Confessions
"A false confession is where a suspect in a crime admits guilt to the crime, even though he or she is not
responsible for the crime." (Wikipedia)
Even though false confessions might appear to be an exceptional and unlikely event, they occur on a
regular basis in law systems and it is one of the reasons that law has established a series of rules to
detect, and subsequently reject, false confessions. These are called the "confession rules". Whenever a
sensational crime occurs involving a celebrity, public official or well-known person in the public eye,
hundreds of people usually come forward to confess to the crime. Not all of these confessions can be
true, so most if not all of them must be false. The false confession phenomenon also occurs with
unsolved crimes. For example, over two hundred people confessed to the Lindbergh baby (1932)
kidnapping, and hundreds of people confessed to the (1947) Black Dahlia murder in Los Angeles.
Some people continue to confess to this day about these crimes, and include people who were not even
born at the time. So, why do these people confess to crimes they didn't commit?
Types of false confessions
False confession can occur for a variety of reasons, ranging from the suspect feeling "overpowered" by
police questioning to someone who is "psychologically vulnerable" admitting to something they didn't
do. Kassin's (1997) typology is probably the most-reproduced list of false confession types, and appears
below:
1. Voluntary
2. Coerced
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Forensic Psychology (PSY - 513)
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1. Voluntary confessions
Attention seeking & Publicity conscious
Few people falsely confess just to seek fame or recognition or impress others usually come forward in
celebrity cases or seekers of attention commit this abnormal behavior.
2. Protection of others
These types of confessions are very common in our culture and people falsely confess to protect their
valuable dear ones e.g. one younger brother falsely confessed to save his elder brother as elder brother
was the only one who was earning and supporting the whole family.
Coerced false confessions
Coerced false confessions are results of compelling a person to involuntarily behave in a certain way
(whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation or some other form of pressure or
force. Coercion may typically involve the actual infliction of physical or psychological harm in order to
enhance the credibility of a threat. The threat of further harm may then lead to the cooperation or
obedience of the person being coerced (Wikipedia).So, coerced confessions are initiated by police
because of several reasons like Police need to solve the crime because of higher authorities' pressure to
solve the case or/and police officer wants to show the success for promotions.
Coerced-compliant false confessions
People confess to just get the police interrogation over with or confess to avoid being prosecuted for a
crime elsewhere with stiffer penalties.
Coerced-internalized false confessions
This type of people come forward and really believe they did the crime because of their guilt out of
interrogation or persuasion and commonly innocent, tired and confused people are highly
psychologically vulnerable to these types of confessions. if two persons are equally exposed to same
type of coercion one can internalize false confession because of the factors mentioned earlier.
Techniques used for police interrogation
Police of various countries use different typical techniques for interrogations like:
·  Use of excessive force
·  Threats
·  Sleep deprivation
·  Physical and psychological torture
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Table of Contents:
  1. INTRODUCTION TO FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY:Future of Forensic Psychology
  2. INTRODUCTION TO FORENSIC PSYCHOOGY:Way of police investigation
  3. FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY AND POLICE:Violent Criminals
  4. POLICE PSYCHOLOGY:Use of excessive force, Corruption, Personnel Selection
  5. POLICE PSYCHOLOGY:Fitness-for-Duty Evaluation (FFDE), False Confessions
  6. INVESTIGATIVE PSYCHOLOGY:For instance, Empirical and logical approach
  7. INVESTIGATIVE PSYCHOLOGY:Crime Scene Investigation, Staging
  8. PSYCHOLOGY OF VIOLENCE:Law of Conservation of Energy, Super ego
  9. PSYCHOANALYTIC MODEL AND VIOLENCE:Fixation at Oral Stage
  10. PSYCHOANALYTIC MODEL AND VIOLENCE:Defense Mechanism, Rationalization
  11. JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY AND VIOLENCE:Freudian Methods, JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY
  12. JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY AND VIOLENCE:Religion and mental illnesses
  13. BEHAVIORIST PERSPECTIVE AND VIOLENCE:Shadow’s violence, Child’s violence
  14. BEHAVIORIST PERSPECTIVE AND VIOLENCE:Operant Conditioning
  15. BEHAVIORIST PERSPECTIVE AND VIOLENCE:Schedules of Punishment
  16. SOCIAL LEARNING MODEL AND VIOLENCE:Observational learning, Vicarious punishment
  17. MORAL DEVELOPMENT AND VIOLENCE:Symbolic functioning, Formal operational stage
  18. BIO-PSYCHO-SOCIAL MODEL:Mental hospitals are factories of abuse
  19. ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE ABOUT VIOLENCE:Morality is essential
  20. ISLAMIC MODEL:Nafs al-Ammara, Nafs al-Lawwama, Nafs ul Naatiqa
  21. TREATMENTS FOR THE SOUL:Tawba, Sabr o Shukr, Niyyat o Ikhlaas, Taffakkur
  22. CRIMINOGENIC PERSONALITY:Personality Disorders, Common Crimes
  23. CRIMINOGENIC PERSONALITY AND VIOLENCE:Mnemonic, Similarities
  24. CRIMINOGENIC PERSONALITY AND VIOLENCE:Terrorism and Psychopaths
  25. LEARNING DISABILITIES/MENTAL RETARDATION AND VIOLENCE
  26. ASSESSMENT OF PERSONALITY DISORDERS:Reasons for referral, Personality Inventories
  27. ASSESSMENT OF PERSONALITY DISORDERS:Different cutoff scores
  28. RISK ASSESSMENT:Violence reduction scale, Stability of Family upbringing
  29. TREATMENT OF VIOLENT BEHAVIOR / PERSONALITY PSYCHODYNAMIC PSYCHOTHERAPY
  30. JUNGINA THERAPEUTIC MODEL:Limits of re-parenting, Personality Typologies
  31. GROUP THERAPY FOR OFFENDERS:Learning in Groups, Humanistic Groups
  32. PSYCHOTHERAPIES IN FORENSIC SETTINGS:Narrative Therapy
  33. PSYCHOTHERAPIES IN FORENSIC SETTINGS:Solution Focused Therapy
  34. PSYCHOTHERAPIES IN FORENSIC SETTINGS:Avoiding reactance, Externalization
  35. PSYCHOTHERAPY IN FORENSIC SETTINGS AND SPECIAL CHALLENGES
  36. FORENSIC PSYCHOTHERAPY:Exploring therapeutic alliance, Music Therapy
  37. VIOLENCE REDUCTION PROGRAM:Target Population, Lack of motivation
  38. VIOLENCE REDUCTION PROGRAM:Criminal attitude, Interpersonal Aggression
  39. VICTIM SUPPORT:Main features of PTSD, Emotional Support
  40. VICTIM SUPPORT:Debriefing, Desensitization, Eidetic Therapy, Narrative Therapy
  41. SUBSTANCE MISUSE TREATMENT PROGRAM:Marijuana, Unconventional drugs
  42. SUBSTANCE MISUSE TREATMENT PROGRAM:Stages of Change, Homosexuality
  43. EXPERT WITNESS:Insanity Pleas, Sexual Offence Risk, Instructions
  44. COUNTER TERRORISM:Misconceptions, Psychologists & Propaganda war
  45. SUMMING UP FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY:Problems with Risk Assessment, Expert Witness