Forensic Psychology and Ethical Implications

Forensic Psychology and Ethical Implications
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Forensic Psychology and Ethical Implications
Introduction
Forensic psychology is a specialty in professional psychology whose activities are primarily intended to provide professional psychological expertise within the legal, judicial, and military systems. Law enforcement personnel often resort to various procedures to elicit confessions from suspects, including psychological approaches. These range from simply exploring suspects' lack of understanding of rights to more complex procedures like the Reid Technique. This technique uses psychological approaches to extract useful information from potential suspects. The problems, however, arise when psychological techniques are utilized as forms of torture in the military. Since psychologists are involved in the development and deployment of these techniques, their role becomes controversial based on the argument that they violate fundamental tenets of their professional code of conduct. Thus, the current paper aims to highlight and discuss some of the ethical dilemmas associated with the use of psychologists in military interrogations because of human rights and ethical implications.
Involvement of Psychologists in Military Interrogations and The Ensuing Dilemma
The difference between a profession and trade is that the former possesses a self-imposed code of conduct to which members have agreed to submit. According to Yadav (2017), such regulations are ethically based and are not imposed by outside legislation. In the absence of such a code, the government fills the gaps by setting legal rules, which are often undesirable based on the specific needs of the profession experienced professionals. In the case of psychology, a code of ethics exists to which professionals must adhere. Therenflict between other jurisdictions (or legal authorities) and the Psychologists' Code. Ethi. Ethical A 2005 inquiry (Miller, 2015) reported that leaders of the American Psychological Association collaborated with the CIA and Pentagon to weaken this ethical guideline to allow psychologists to participate in coercive interrogation programs following 9/11. According to Pope (2018), the collaboration created a loophole where psychologists could ignore their ethical code when it conflicts with other legal authorities such as the military.
This controversial dilemma forced the APA to take a stance on the issue of torture in military interrogations as a means of obtaining information through psychological techniques. In its new positions, the APA forbids psychologists from conducting, supervising, being in, or assisting in national security interrogations by intelligence and military agencies, including providing contractors working for these agencies (Speckhard, 2015). While the new stance allows professionals to be consulted by government agencies' broad interrogation policy, it forbids them from advising on conditions of confinement and being involved in the consultation of specific detention conditions. As the outcomes of the 2005 inquiry report, the new stance is also controversial leading to two factions. On th...