Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Conscience: Forensic Psychology
    Conscience: Forensic Psychology
    Conscience: Forensic Psychology
    Ebook101 pages1 hour

    Conscience: Forensic Psychology

    By Soni Werner

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Conscience: Forensic Psychology, by Soni S. Werner, Ph.D. is a textbook for undergraduate college students who are majoring in psychology. It has three main chapters focusing on the prevention, intervention and rehabilitation of criminals. Within each chapter are three perspectives, including a physiological view of the conscience, social influences on the conscience, and a spiritual view of the conscience. This relatively short textbook is designed to give an overview of some of the latest scholarly research in forensic psychology as reported in professional, peer-reviewed journals up to 2015. Werner briefly summarizes over 100 scholarly sources from the fields of neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, law, sociology, criminology, neurolaw, and theology. Most of the references are to evidence-based research studies on various aspects of forensic psychology. Students who read this eBook will have the chance to see the wide range of issues that current forensic psychologists handle in their profession. In the prevention chapter, Werner provides summaries of research on the most effective ways to prevent children and adolescents from becoming criminals, including both a physiological view of the brain and a review of the main social influences on the conscience. In the intervention chapter, (in the physiological section) Werner describes the latest methods for measuring the abnormal brains of young offenders of the law who appear calloused while harming other people or property. In addition, Werner highlights many of the most effective social programs in the world designed to strengthen the consciences of young delinquents before they become committed to lifetimes of crime. In the rehabilitation chapter, Werner reviews the duties of forensic psychologists who are called upon to assess adult criminals who are facing the judicial system after getting arrested. In the physiological section of the rehabilitation chapter, there is a summary of neural assessments of the brains of criminals, and how this evidence may be presented in court to determine the offenders' innocence or guilt. In the section highlighting social influences on the conscience, Werner discusses methods for detecting deception, presenting eyewitness accounts, determining guilt, and offering therapy to criminals. At the end of each of the three major chapters, there is a subsection called the spiritual view of the conscience. This is included to provide a contrast to the civil and moral views of criminals. These spiritual subsections of the three chapters are all inspired by the works of the theologian, Emanuel Swedenborg. He wrote dozens of theological works in the 18th century in Europe, and these doctrinal ideas provide insight into the spiritual growth of human beings. He also had mystical experiences and then described the afterlife. Concepts from Swedenborg's works are included in this eBook to provide students with an eternal perspective, because people often wonder what happens to criminals in the afterlife. This Swedenborgian spiritual perspective emphasizes how it is the individual's love of being evil or good that is the most important variable of all. Everyone's major affections are revealed in the afterlife, so people who feel sincere remorse will have the chance to be forgiven and learn how to become positive members of angelic communities. However, those people who really love to be evil will not be able to be hypocritical anymore. It will become obvious to all other angelic spirits that these individuals will be better off in hell. Forensic psychology students who learn about the physiological view of the conscience, the social influences on the conscience, and this spiritual view of the conscience will benefit from this interdisciplinary approach when trying to prevent, intervene, or rehabilitate criminals.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSoni Werner
    Release dateNov 5, 2015
    ISBN9781310179419
    Conscience: Forensic Psychology
    Author

    Soni Werner

    Dr. Soni Soneson Werner is an Associate Professor Emerita at Bryn Athyn College, in Bryn Athyn, PA. She has taught there for nearly 20 years as well as teaching as an Adjunct Instructor at Elmira College, Corning Community College and Alfred University, in NY. During her time at Corning Community College she also taught off campus inside a maximum security prison in Elmira, NY. Dr. Werner's specialties include developmental psychology, organizational psychology, forensic psychology and conflict management. She has also written other books entitled: Growth of the Female Mind: Sincerity and Severity, Altruism, and Searching for Mary Magdalene. These books are available from Amazon. Dr. Werner is also certified as a Mediator, Conflict Coach and Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteer advocating for abused children. She can be reached at soniasw@ptd.net.I was interviewed on YouTube Swedenborg and Life recently: see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVezrGTR-rE

    Related to Conscience

    Related ebooks

    New Age & Spirituality For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Criminal Profiling, Part 1

      Dec 22, 2020

      Criminal Profiling, Part 1
      9 min read

    • Article

      Prison Is Even Worse When You Have a Disability Like Autism

      Nov 2, 2020

      State officials often fail to identify prisoners with developmental disorders, a group that faces overwhelming challenges behind bars, from bright lights to noises to social dynamics.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Complex Mind

      Aug 15, 2018

      Complex Mind
      4 min read

    • Article

      Why We Search for Silver Linings

      Mar 13, 2024

      Pollyanna, Eleanor Porter’s buoyant novel from 1913, tapped into something deeply rooted in the human psyche. In the story, the eponymous protagonist is tragically orphaned and sent to live with a grumpy aunt, but nonetheless maintains such an optimi

      4 min read

    • Article

      Therapy Is Making Kids Ill

      Mar 28, 2024

      IF YOU DON’T HAVE WORDS TO EXPRESS a thought, can you even think it? The idea that language shapes cognition is known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, after American linguist Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Whorf, and almost a century after it wa

      5 min read

    • Article

      Interesting Slices Of Life

      Jul 12, 2023

      Interesting Slices Of Life
      2 min read

    • Article

      Signs Of trouble

      May 11, 2023

      Signs Of trouble
      7 min read

    • Article

      Morally Insane?

      Dec 1, 2018

      Morally Insane?
      4 min read

    • Article

      Youth Addiction

      Dec 12, 2016

      Youth Addiction
      4 min read

    • Article

      Orchids & dandelions

      May 22, 2022

      Orchids & dandelions
      10 min read

    • Article

      Feeling Under Attack?

      Jan 25, 2022

      Feeling Under Attack?
      3 min read

    • Article

      Why Are Nigerians So Quick To Dismiss The Mental Health Of Adolescents?

      Aug 15, 2022

      Nigerian adults can be dismissive of the mental health of young people. Sadly, this only aggravates the situation, leading to severe consequences for the children. 

      4 min read

    • Article

      What Pop Psychology Gets Wrong

      Jul 16, 2020

      What Pop Psychology Gets Wrong
      8 min read

    • Article

      Student Edition

      Sep 30, 2017

      WITH EMMA LAW RANCE HOMETOWN: Adelaide CURRENTLY LIVING: Oxford RESEARCH: Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience “The first project for my PhD explored how we make decisions when we are missing information, and how this uncertainty influences our c

      8 min read

    • Article

      Cry For Help

      Sep 26, 2021

      Cry For Help
      3 min read

    • Article

      Interesting Slices Of Life

      Sep 16, 2021

      Interesting Slices Of Life
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Teenage Brain: A WORK IN PROGRESS

      Aug 15, 2018

      In 2012, Sarah Jayne Blakemore, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of London, spoke at the TEDGlobal conference on “the mysterious workings of the adolescent brain.” In her talk, she compared the prefrontal cortex in teens with t

      3 min read

    • Article

      Dissociation in Infants AND YOUNG CHILDREN

      Sep 2, 2021

      Throughout the United States, family courts are not provided accurate, relevant information about the neurological, psychological and social developmental needs of children from birth to seven years of age. Family courts have, for many years, focused

      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Conscience

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Conscience - Soni Werner

      Conscience: Forensic Psychology

      by Soni S. Werner, Ph.D.

      Published by Soni S. Werner at Smashwords

      Copyright 2015 Soni S. Werner

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Acknowledgement:

      I would like to acknowledge the generosity of the Glenn family in Bryn Athyn, PA. They provided funding for me during my sabbatical from Bryn Athyn College, so I could write this eBook.

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      CHAPTER 1 PREVENTION

      1.A. Prevention: Physiological View of the Conscience

      1.B. Prevention: Social Influences on the Conscience

      1.C. Prevention: Spiritual View of the Conscience

      CHAPTER 2 INTERVENTION

      2.A. Intervention: Physiological View of the Conscience

      2.B. Intervention: Social Influences on the Conscience

      2.C. Intervention: Spiritual View of the Conscience

      CHAPTER 3 REHABILITATION

      3.A. Rehabilitation: Physiological View of the Conscience

      3.B. Rehabilitation: Social Influences on the Conscience

      3.C. Rehabilitation: Spiritual View of the Conscience

      Conclusion

      References

      Appendix

      About the Author

      Introduction

      This book is about Forensic Psychology, designed to be an academic resource for college students (and other interested people). Forensic Psychology involves the study of people who are involved in the legal system, usually because they have broken the law. The conscience is the human being’s developing capacity to distinguish right from wrong.

      FASCINATING?

      Years ago, I had the chance to work with criminals inside a maximum security prison, and I have been fascinated ever since with the issues around crime. I wondered: Can we hold every criminal responsible for his crimes? What if a person did not mean to do it? What if she is mentally challenged? What if he is brain damaged? Can people change and improve their consciences with help from forensic psychologists? These and other questions will be addressed in this eBook.

      SCOPE?

      The scope of this book includes a psychological perspective on preventing crime, intervening once crimes have begun, and rehabilitating some of the offenders. So the chapters are divided into these three broad categories:

      Prevention

      Intervention

      Rehabilitation

      Within each chapter are subsections on different aspects of the human being of prime interest to forensic psychology students, from the tangible to the more abstract:

      Physiological View of the Conscience

      Social Influences on the Conscience

      Spiritual View of the Conscience

      The physiological subsections primarily include summaries of some of the latest research by neuroscientists about the human brain. The social subsections include some interesting research about how social interactions can increase or decrease the destructive behaviors of people who commit crimes. This section also includes references to various psychological assessments, theories and research involved when forensic specialists investigate the conscience of the criminal to assist the courts. Finally, the spiritual subsections will consist of references to the doctrinal Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg that are relevant to the criminal mind.

      QUESTIONS?

      Can society hold criminals responsible for their law-breaking behaviors if there are physiological reasons for those actions? Is it ever too late for social interventions to effectively help criminals stop committing crimes? Are all criminals held spiritually responsible after they die, when their circumstances may not all be alike?

      CHAPTER 1 PREVENTION

      1.A. Prevention: Physiological View of the Conscience

      BRAIN INJURY?

      In the past few decades, scientists in the neurosciences have developed tools for assessing the structures and functions of the human brain. With ever increasing detail, these scholars report on normal and abnormal brains, by looking at autopsy reports, fMRI’s, PET Scans, and EEG’s. The neuroscientists and forensic psychologists are cautious in their reports to the public and in the courtrooms, because the neurological test results are physical correlations of behavior, and causation is not always clear. However, a review of some of the latest neurological research is worth including here, in an effort to untangle the question of why any human being would become a criminal. What if a child experiences a TBI (traumatic brain injury)? Does this literally alter the brain in such a way that this child is more likely to become a criminal? Williams, McAuliffe, Cohen, Parsonage and Ramsbotham (2015) assert that young people with TBI are not very good at communicating and may take more risks than other adolescents. In addition, Rosenberg, McDonald, Dethier, Kessels and Westbrook (2014) also investigated what happens when people experience traumatic brain injuries. They found that, compared to other people without brain injuries, these people were less accurate in recognizing other people’s fear. This means that there is an increase in the likelihood that TBI children and adolescents will become adult criminals. Many parents, coaches and teachers are motivated to require that children wear helmets to reduce the likelihood of brain injury during contact sports. Head injury can effect many different structures of the brain, and not all of them lead to a person becoming a criminal. Sometimes the head injury leads to damage to the blood vessels bringing essential nutrients and oxygen to certain brain structures.

      HYPOPERFUSION?

      According to Vandekerkhove, Plessers, Van Mieghem, Beeckmans, Van Acker, Maex, Markowitsch, Marien and Van Overwalle (2014) when a brain does not have enough blood (hypoperfusion) in the frontal lobe, that individual is likely to have trouble recognizing others’ emotions. This implies that if a child has an accident, an illness, or is hit in the head, this could have a long term effect from not getting enough blood going to the parts of the brain that help an individual understand and empathize with other people’s emotions.

      FRONTAL LOBE?

      Van den Bos, Vahl, Guroglu, van Nunspeet, Colins, Markus, Rombouts, van der Wee, Vermeiren and Crone (2014) also analyzed the frontal lobes of the brains of young offenders. Based on their study, they concluded that when these criminals had lower activity in the frontal lobe they had difficulty attending to the key features of a social context. Not only did these

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1