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Criminal psychology is a field of psychology that helps prevent and investigate
crimes by analyzing the peculiarities, growth background, and environmental
factors of criminals who commit crimes. Furthermore, methods that contribute
to the rehabilitation of criminals may be included in the research, so it is
classified as one of the fields of applied psychology.
The research area of criminal psychology overlaps with criminal psychiatry,
criminal sociology, and criminal policy, and can be seen as a kind of
criminology. In a narrow sense, they also talk about academic fields that study criminals' personalities,
character development, and motives for crime. However, in general, it includes judicial psychology dealing
with psychological issues related to psychiatric trials and correctional psychology, which studies correction
methods and treatment of criminals.
The main direction of criminal psychology is research to clarify the causes and characteristics of
criminal behavior based on various scientific theories related to behavior that causes crime. It is applied
to preventing recidivism by applying a wide range of psychological expertise to crime prevention and
recidivism, criminal investigation, understanding of criminals, counseling and correction of criminals, and
evaluation of criminality. Therefore, researchers will conduct various adjacent studies and interdisciplinary
research related to criminal psychology and crime (psychology, sociology, orthodontic science, law, police
science, criminology, etc.) and natural science (medical science, biology, genetics, etc.)
Realistically, a clear understanding of the causes and processes of criminal behavior and the psychological
mechanisms underlying the consequences is a priority. The main purpose is to train experts who can
respond appropriately to crime through this. Profilers, often referred to in serious criminal investigations
such as serial crimes, first appeared in the United States in 1972. The FBI introduced profilers after a
