Forensic psychologist

You would try to find out why people commit crimes and help them to make positive changes in their behaviour.

You would rehabilitate and treat offenders or mental health patients in prisons, high security hospitals and specialist mental health residential units.

You could be working with violent or sexual offenders, young people and high-risk offenders with severe personality disorders. You’d help each person to understand why they act as they do, and find ways they can overcome their problems and behaviour patterns.

This can be a challenging job: you may have to deal with people acting aggressively, including possibly verbal or even physical assault. You’d need to have patience, empathy and a genuine desire to help people.

You would:

• Assess an offender and their behaviour
• Advise on the best location for prisoners
• Develop treatment and rehabilitation programmes for offenders
• Provide psychological therapy to help offenders make positive changes
• Offer expert advice to parole boards, mental health review tribunals or court cases
• Produce formal written reports

You would also help to write policies and strategies for helping offenders, safely and effectively, and train and mentor trainee psychologists.

You would look for ways to reduce stress and improve life inside prisons for staff and prisoners. For example, you could advise on managing offenders or lead workshops on issues such as coping with bullying.

You might use techniques such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to challenge the way people view themselves and the world.

You could also support police investigations by doing criminal profiling.

You’d do research into the cause and effect of criminal behaviour to improve and develop professional practice.