who founded forensic psychology?

-- kerryann mckenzie (kerrymay22002@yahoo.com), January 21, 2004

Answers

I don't know if he truly counts as "the founder," but Cesare Lombroso was certainly an influential early figure in (what we would now call) forensic psychology. A web search should reveal lots of informtion about him.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), January 21, 2004.

You'll find an interesting timeline on forensic psychology at http://www.forensicpsychology.it/primo%20numero/history%20of% 20forensic%20psychology.htm although it doesn't establish who the "founder" is. There is a chapter on forensic psychology in the handbook to general psychology http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd- 0471383201,descCd-tableOfContents.html There is a history of Division 41, forensic psychology, in Vol. IV of Donald Dewsbury's Unification Through Division: Histories of the Divisions of the American Psychological Association (APA, 1999).

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), January 22, 2004.

The investigation of psychological aspects of legal systems originated in the Enlightment. Particularly Cesare Beccaria's 1764 published treatise "Dei delitti e delle pene" had a profound influence on German writers like Johann Christian Gottlieb Schaumann. Schaumann is considered by many secondary sources to be the first author, who wrote a Criminal Psychology in 1792.

-- David Miller (miller.david@web.de), January 23, 2004.