Role of Psychology in Crime Investigation and in Expediting Justice: A Review

The relationship between psychology and law can be traced back to the 19th century, albeit with little attention having been given to the two disciplines’ interactions. The interface between these disciplines has grown tremendously over the years and the existing relationship needs to be nurtured and developed if the criminal justice system is to win the war against crime and criminality. The main objective of this paper was to review the literature related to the contributions of psychology to the field of law with a view to coming up with better answers to the questions that have always been raised about unresolved criminal matters. The author discusses how psychology can be harnessed by law enforcement agents, psychologists and other criminal justice system experts to improve on the investigation of crime and the general administration of justice. The paper analyses the importance of offender profiling, interviewing witnesses and suspects, construction of police line ups/identification parades as well as the importance of testimony giving by experts in the criminal courts. From the review of literature, the author concludes that psychology and law are two inseparable fields that need to rely on each other for justice to be properly served. The review, also acknowledges that police line ups are not foolproof when it comes to identifying the correct suspect but their usage in criminal investigation goes a long way in aiding witness memory. The paper concludes that, without the proper integration of psychology into the criminal and legal matters, many cases can be improperly handled resulting in false convictions, wrongful acquittals and inappropriate sentencing of accused persons.