Archive for the ‘Police Psychology Theories’ Category

Police Psychology: The Police Brain

Posted: March 2, 2019 in Public Information Bureau
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Police Psychology:  The Police Brain

by Gary S. Aumiller. Ph.D.  ABPP

 

What if in the hiring process for police officers you could pick someone resistant to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, have the best ability to function under pressure, make good quick decisions with better accuracy than normal people, and someone who can control bias against minority groups.  At the same time, you could pick people that are good at setting priorities, good at organizing events, good at weeding out distractions, and good at orchestrating outcomes.  In shoot-no shoot situations, they get better scores and make better decisions on protecting themselves.  Sounds like that might be valuable, huh?  This was the presentation at the IACP Psychological Services Section by a brilliant psychologist named Dr. Mark Zelig who advocated for some level neurological testing as an addition to the standard battery for testing policemen for departments.  It also happens to fall in line with some of my thoughts.  What if neurological testing could actually help predict who is better capable of doing the job? (more…)

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Police Psychology: Reproducibility

Posted: December 5, 2018 in Public Information Bureau
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Police Psychology:  Reproducibility

by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.  ABPP

 

So, my 11-year old daughter had to do a science project earlier this year and she decided because her mother was constantly saying that playing on the IPad was hurting her, she would test out whether IPad play really had an impact on her attention span.  So, we set it up with three alternate forms of a neurological test, the Trail Making Test, a connect the dots type of activity, (okay I helped a little), one before, one in the middle and one at the end.  There was an hour and a half of Minecraft in-between each of the trials.  We got her friends over and measured the change from trial to trial, with both time and number of errors as the variables.  The results….well, I’ll get to that.

We start training kids from an early age on the rigors of scientific method and how to make a scientific study.  We train them how to test a theory and how to make a hypothesis.  We train them that science requires experiments to answer questions and learn more about our world.  What I think we forget to train them in is that one study does not provide a definitive answer but only a suggestion.  The ignorance of the statement that it is only a suggestion is how we come up with a bunch of “Fake Science” being reported and guiding our way of life. (more…)

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Police Psychology: Suicide Challenge

Posted: November 20, 2018 in Public Information Bureau
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Police Psychology:  Suicide Challenges

by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.  ABPP

 

It’s just an image on a App.  They used a Japanese doll artist’s rendition of a horror figure, a girl that supposedly killed herself and is apparently haunting those who live.  Ah, who knows.  What is more important is she contacts young persons on the internet and asks them to download her.   Then she gives them instructions over the course of their interactions trying to gain information about them, or their parents, or do a variety of dangerous self-harm tasks, she makes bullying threats, shames them, then talks them into killing themselves.  It’s called the “MOMO SUICIDE CHALLENGE.”  Mostly ‘tweens and young teenagers play with her online.  My 11-year old knows about it.  Her friends do.  Most parents do not.  Many cops do not, YET!

The Blue Whale Hoax started in Russia.  It was the same sort of thing, a person interrupts you from Facebook or some other App and asks you to join them by giving them your phone number or by connecting as friends.  Then they slowly give you directions, Blue Whale had over 50 posts fed to you once a day, ending in asking you to kill yourself.  People have tied this to suicides around the world, but no one has evidence of a direct causal element.  Asking pre-teen kids to kill themselves – does it get any sicker than this? (more…)

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Police Psychology: Identity Politics

Posted: June 21, 2018 in Rank and Leadership
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Police Psychology:  Identity Politics

by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D, AABP

 

This is one of those terms that many people in the media throw around, but few in real life understand.  Let me describe it simply as far as what is going on in the media.

Basically, it is about the power of the voice.  The straight white American male has the least voice and sits as the baseline.  Now above the baseline are any persons who belong to a group that can claim they are victimized, or oppressed, or have effects of being victimized or oppressed in the past.  Basically, the white American female makes claim to being victimized because of sex and can be seen as above the American male.  The same is for people of color — Black, Hispanic, Indian, West Indian, etc.  Basically, they are rank ordered even further within this category and depending on how loud they get at the time.  Now if you are a member of more than one identity group you have even more power.  So, a Hispanic female has even more power in identity politics than a Hispanic male.  Now further, sexual orientation gives you a bigger voice in some political circles, so if you are a gay white male you have a larger voice in political identity that the straight white American male.  Religion plays a large role also.  The Muslim is probably first on the identity power list, but Jewish people have a good case because of the Holocaust.  If you are a gay Jewish female Hispanic you have a pretty powerful voice.  Although a Muslim Hispanic female transgender would even trump the voice of the Jewish gay.  Geez, why is this so complicated.  That’s the tongue-in-cheek approach to what is meant by identity politics.  Now let’s apply it to policing…. (more…)

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Police Psych: Sex Crimes Cop Part 3: The Delusions

Posted: April 11, 2018 in Police Stress
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Police Psych: Sex Crimes Cop Part 3:  The Delusions

 

 

With Easter having just past, I thought I would show you how a Sex Crime Cop sees the holiday (sent to me on Easter Sunday by a sex crime cop with the statement “this is how I see Easter.  Everything’s has become so sick.”)  We all see the world as a threatening place when something bad happens.  For the sex crime cop, it frequently goes way too far.  Any situation that their child is involved in, or their grandchild, or a child they know casually, bring up images in their heads.  It morphs from Boy Scouts, to clergy, to teachers, even to mythical figures dressing up at a shopping mall.  The worst part, is they don’t even have to have experienced these kinds of things, the images can be within their own creative minds.

You see the cop that is doing these kinds of cases jumps into a world of fetishes and philias, and crimes that are outside the box.  They see such creative types of perversions within the first year of sex crime work that they didn’t know existed growing up or working the streets.  And it doesn’t come from a books or pictures, it comes from real life, real images.  Drinking blood, nah that’s the easy stuff, ‘having sex with animals while smeared with human blood and eating engorged organs that come from who knows where while you are screaming like a Japanese Water Buffalo in heat,’ that’s the crazy stuff they are exposed to (yes there are Japanese water buffalo).  That’s the stuff of real perversions.  The type of perversion they are  exposed to daily surpasses their imagination and is a terrific shock to their systems, and if there are children involved ii intensifies their involvement. (more…)

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