In the text, it is mentioned that there are five major areas in research and two subareas that practice forensic psychology which include the following:
- Police and Public Safety Psychology
- Legal Psychology
- Family Forensic Psychology
- Crime and Delinquency Psychology
- Forensic School Psychology
- Victimology and Victim Services
- Correctional Psychology
(Bartol & Bartol, 2021).
Under the umbrella of Forensic Psychology, the subspecialty that sparked the most interest was Crime and Delinquency. Psychology of Crime and Delinquency looks in depth at the behavior and mental progression of a juvenile offender to an adult. One of the main goals of Crime and Delinquency is to investigate the "antisocial behavior" that most offenders portray. As a psychologist for Crime and Delinquency the core of the research is to find the correlation between the unlawful behavior and the code of living.
Psychology of Crime and Delinquency captured my attention due to past experience in that field. Before arriving at my current job as a teacher, I used to be employed at a Juvenile Rehabilitation/Residential Center for all girls. During my employment at the non-profit organization, I was able to identify the holes in the systems. I began to observe how the girls were able to slip between the cracks. It was due to a lot of reasons occurring outside and inside of the juvenile center. Unfortunately, there were residents who were unable to overcome many obstacles because of the exposure of temptations all at their disposal once they re-enter into the community. As a youth care specialist, I did my best to counsel and guide the residents to create the best path achievable. The tricky part for a lot of the residents was going back into the same environments. Hopefully from this subspecialty, I can look further into how to lower the recidivism rates and compare our juvenile systems to other countries in the world.
Three jobs that are available based on the subspecialty chosen is Criminal Profiler, Criminal Psychologist, and Behavior Therapist (Indeed, 2023). As a criminal profiler they often identify criminal behavior and find similarities of the crime using a timeline. Another job mentioned in the article, "What Can You Do With a Criminal Psychology Degree?" is a criminal psychologist. A criminal psychologist's job consist of helping the law with recognizing the motivation of a criminal. Lastly, the third job is a behavior therapist, they work closely with patients to aid in changing the patients behavior/habits. A behavior therapist is able to come up with treatment plans based on the client development in therapy.
The career option that was most appealing was the Behavior Therapist. Although I do like the thought of understanding the reasons of a criminal's behavior as a criminal profiler. I feel as a Behavior Therapist, most aligns with my values as far as trying to reduce the crime rates among young children and adolescents.
Reference
Bartol, C. R., & Bartol, A. M. (2021). Introduction to Forensic Psychology (6th ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc. (US). https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9781071815328Links to an external site.
What Can You Do With a Criminal Psychology Degree? 10 Career Fields. (n.d.). Indeed Career Guide. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/what-can-you-do-with-criminal-psychology-degree