Professional exchange: News from legal psychology and criminal research!

Professional exchange: News from legal psychology and criminal research!

On May 21, 2025, an important professional exchange took place between the legal psychology team at the MSB and employees of the “ALiAS” research project. The aim of this meeting was to identify possible overlaps in current research projects, particularly in the area of ​​digital text analysis in a criminalistic context. According to the MSB Medical School Berlin, the experts discussed different points of reference to the legal psychology research projects that deal with the analysis of communication behavior of sexual offenders on the Darknet and text-based sexual abuse of children. The ALiAS project was only launched on May 1, 2025 and is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The scientific contact person is Prof. Dr. Robert Lehmann, who holds a professorship for legal psychology at the MSB.

The importance of legal psychology is constantly increasing these days because it makes a decisive contribution to solving legal problems. Legal psychology is a branch of psychology that applies psychological theories, methods and findings to such problems. It includes two main areas: forensic psychology, which deals with the application of psychology in court proceedings, and criminal psychology, which deals with the development, detection and treatment of criminals. Legal psychologists are active in a wide range of areas of activity, including expert assessment, psychology of testimony and the assessment of culpability. They also make significant contributions to basic and application-oriented research areas, which are described in detail by the DGPs.

Research and training in legal psychology

There are numerous qualification options in the field of legal psychology. Graduates of a master's degree in legal psychology have the opportunity to acquire the necessary knowledge at various universities, such as the MSB, MSH Medical School Hamburg or the University of Bonn. These programs usually lead to the title “M.Sc. (Legal Psychology)”. Postgraduate training to become a specialist in legal psychology is also offered and contributes to professionalization in this specialized area. This further training is location-independent and is carried out in the form of seminars, whereby practical expert work is required.

It should be particularly emphasized that psychotherapeutic training is not absolutely necessary for work as an expert or for the police. However, clinical expertise can be beneficial, particularly with regard to forensic issues. Further training courses in psychotherapeutic techniques could prove particularly useful for specialist psychologists, especially in penal or custodial settings.

Interdisciplinary exchange and research projects

Legal psychology is one of the oldest disciplines of applied psychology and covers a wide range of topics. The connection to forensic psychology covers, among other things, questions about court hearings, psychological errors in judgment and expert assessment in criminal and civil law matters. In addition, there are regular exchange and discussion formats, such as the monthly graduate colloquium (KollRePsy) at the FernUniversität in Hagen. Here research concepts are discussed, methods are presented and current work is presented.

A new focus in legal psychology was set at the FernUniversität in Hagen in April 2019, which is defined by close collaboration between teaching areas and an interdisciplinary approach. The research ranges from dark personality traits to psychological inventories for risk assessment and credibility assessments. This research makes an important contribution to the internationalization and promotion of young researchers in legal psychology.

For detailed information and further developments in this area, we refer to the articles by MSB Medical School Berlin, DGPs and FernUniversität in Hagen.