A Brief History of Forensic Psychology by Dr. Michael Elterman

Private practice owner and Fellow of the American College of Forensic Psychology Dr. Michael Elterman has prepared more than 2,500 reports for the British Columbia court system. In this entry, he provides a short account of the development of forensic psychology.

Some of the earliest research pertaining to forensic psychology dates back to 1895, when J. McKeen Cattell conducted research on the psychology of eyewitness testimony. His experiment’s results indicated a startling degree of inaccuracies among witnesses, which aroused the interest of his colleagues. A psychologist by the name of William Stern conducted similar experiments, and found similar results, namely that emotions negatively influence the ability of witnesses to accurately recall an event.

Meanwhile, psychologists throughout North America and Europe began to act as witnesses in criminal trials regarding issues with witness testimony. The opinions of psychiatrists in Canada proved pivotal in several major cases towards the end of the 19th century, including the landmark Canadian judgment against Louis David Riel in 1885.

Until 1940, the field of forensic psychology did not see major growth. Psychologists were allowed to serve as expert witnesses during trials, but their testimonies were often trumped by those of medical experts, who were widely seen as more qualified. In 1940, the case of the People v. Hawthorne set the precedent that expert witnesses would be defined by the depth of their knowledge regarding a subject, not by the specific degrees they had attained.

Through the validity gained for psychologist testimony by the ruling in the People v. Hawthorne case, forensic psychologists have, therefore, proven essential to a number of cases throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, including Jenkins v. United States and Brown v. Board of Education since both cases allowed psychologists to serve as experts. The field has continued to grow, and, as of 2001, the American Psychological Association considers forensic psychology an official specialization for psychologists.