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15 Legal & Criminological Psych. 1 (2010)

handle is hein.journals/legadclpy15 and id is 1 raw text is: f The Legal and Criminological Psychology (2010), 15, I-3 Psycholog ical snwSociety © 2010 The British Psychological Society www.bpsou rnals.co. u Introduction: What works in investigative psychology? Par Anders Granhag'* and Aldert Vrij2 'University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden 2University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK This is an introduction to the special issue entitled 'What works in investigative psychology?', guest edited by Par Anders Granhag and Aldert Vrij. This special issue focuses on eight research themes and aims to discuss how psychological research can help solve concrete problems that occur in investigative contexts. What do we want to achieve with this special issue? Investigative psychology 'covers all aspects of psychology that are relevant to the conduct of criminal and civil investigations' (Canter, 2000, p. 1091). Although 'investigative psychology' is a term that recently emerged within the broader field of 'legal psychology', several research themes found under the investigative psychology umbrella are not new. For example, research on eyewitness testimony and deception detection dates far back in the history of legal psychology (e.g. Sporer, 2008). Yet, during the last decade the many research themes of investigative psychology have attracted increased interest at major scientific conferences on 'psychology and law', such as the European Association of Psychology and Law and the American Psychology-Law Society conferences. Further evidence for the popularity of investigative psychology can be found in a recent journal overview where it was concluded that the proportion of papers relevant to investigative psychology published in five major 'psychology and law' journals (Behavioural Sciences and the Law, CriminalJustice and Behavior, Law and Human Behavior, Psychology, Crime & Law, and Legal and Criminological Psychology) has increased steadily over the last three decades (Snook, Doan, Cullen, Kavanagh, & Eastwood, 2009). In this special issue, the focus is on eight research themes within investigative psychology; most of which have occupied researchers for a long period of time (e.g. how best to interview witnesses), but a few of the themes have not until recently caught the attention of psycho-legal researchers (e.g. offender profiling and malingering *Correspondence should be addressed to Pdr Anders Granhag, Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, PO Box 500, SE 405 30, Gothenburg, Sweden (e-mail: pag@psy.gu.se). DOI:10.1348/1 35532509X477757