Forensic and Legal Psychology

Psychological Science Applied to Law

Fifth Edition

Publication Date: December 15, 2026

Paperback ISBN: 9781319615758

Mark Costanzo and Daniel Krauss’s text show students how psychological science can be used to reduce crime, improve legal decision making, and promote justice. Fully integrated discussions of real cases and trials, along with other examples of the legal system in action, show how research...

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Forensic and Legal Psychology

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Forensic and Legal Psychology

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Chapter 1: Psychology and Law: A Cautious Alliance

Chapter 2: Lie Detection

Chapter 3: Interrogations and Confessions

Chapter 4: The Psychology of Forensic Identification: DNA, Fingerprints, and Other Types of Physical Trace Evidence

Chapter 5: Criminal Profiling and Psychological Autopsies

Chapter 6: Eyewitness Identification and Testimony

Chapter 7: Child Sexual Abuse: Interviewing Children and Assessing the Recovered Memories of Adults

Chapter 8: Competency to Stand Trial

Chapter 9: Plea Bargaining, Jury Selection, and Trial Procedure

Chapter 10: The Insanity Defense

Chapter 11: Intimate Partner Violence, Battered Woman Syndrome, Rape Trauma Syndrome, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in the Courtroom

Chapter 12: Juries and Judges as Decision Makers

Chapter 13: Child Custody Disputes

Chapter 14: Psychology and Law in the Workplace: Discrimination, Harassment, and Fairness

Chapter 15: Predicting Violent Behavior: The Psychology of Risk Assessment

Chapter 16: Corrections: Sentencing, Imprisonment, and Alternatives

Chapter 17: The Death Penalty

Hot Topics boxes discuss issues such as the decision to confess, modern biometrics; and risk algorithms and bias.
Scientific American Spotlights boxes highlight important new research, including the use and misuse of brain scans in the courtroom; the cognitive burden of lying; implicit racial bias and police shootings; and the relationship between mental illness and violence.
Consider This boxes explore special topics in the study of psychology and the law, such as using Familial DNA to identify Criminal Suspects.
Legal Spotlight boxes focus on topics related to specific legal issues.
Focus on Careers boxes give students firsthand accounts from police and forensic psychologists, social science analysts, trial consultants, violence risk experts, and correctional psychologists.
End-of-chapter Discussion and Critical Thinking Questions reinforce student learning and encourage students to think more deeply about concepts.

Forensic and Legal Psychology, 5e features hundreds of new research citations and legal case citations, including the following key updates from each chapter:

Chapter 1: Expanded coverage of amicus curiae briefs submitted by the APA to the U.S. Supreme Court, now including briefs from several significant recent cases: U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (2024), Michigan v. Tyson (2023), Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College (2022), and Fulton v. Philadelphia (2021).
Chapter 2: New discussion on the application of artificial intelligence to lie detection, highlighting its potential benefits and current limitations.
Chapter 3: Significant new material on requiring independent evidence to conduct interrogations and on the effectiveness of science-based interrogation techniques, including a new section on banning false evidence ploys and minimisation of culpability as problematic interrogation tactics.
Chapter 4: New material on biometric identifiers (including GPS data and social media posts), friction ridge analysis in fingerprint evidence, and psychological biases in fingerprint identification.
Chapter 5: Expanded coverage of demographic characteristics of serial killers, with a new discussion of the Stephen Paddock case (2017 Las Vegas mass shooting).
Chapter 6: New photo example of Perry Lott, exonerated in 2023 after a 1988 wrongful rape conviction based on an unreliable witness identification in a suggestive police lineup.
Chapter 7: New material on testimonial load and techniques for effective interviewing of children.
Chapter 8: Updated discussions on a feigning response style (formerly “malingering”).
Chapter 9: New research on why pre-trial detentions induce many defendants to accept a guilty plea and on the impact of negative pretrial publicity on guilty verdicts.
Chapter 10: Updated findings on characteristics associated with defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI).
Chapter 11: PTSD coverage updated to reflect DSM-5-TR criteria; expanded discussion includes IPV in same-sex relationships and a new section on the critique of Lenore Walker’s cycle of abuse.
Chapter 12: New material on unanimity in state criminal trials, updated to discuss U.S. Supreme Court Decision Ramos v. Louisiana and new research on the impact of nullification instructions on the likelihood of conviction.
Chapter 13: Significant new material discussing varieties of custody/parenting plan arrangements, with a new section on the Best Interests of the Child Standard.
Chapter 14: Reorganized and expanded coverage of psychology and the law in the workplace, with discussion of sexual harassment law updated to include recent advances, such as the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act and the Speak Out Act
Chapter 15: New research on the importance of dynamic markers in mitigating some risk assessment instruments’ likelihood of unfairly discriminating against minority/Indigenous groups.
Chapter 16: Updated statistics on incarceration rates, with new research on the impact of defendants’ race on sentencing decisions, and on the influence of involvement in the criminal justice system on juveniles.
Chapter 17: Updated data on U.S. executions, prisoners on death row, public support for the death penalty, racial disparities, and errors and mistakes in capital cases.

The fifth edition also includes new boxed features on timely and important topics, including: whether a child should have a parent in the interrogation room instead of an attorney; differences between male and female serial killers; how George Floyd’s death exposed the false concept of “excited delirium”; the national “competency crisis” in the criminal justice system; intimate partner violence in transgender and gender-diverse populations; child custody evaluation as a career path in forensic and legal psychology; whether people with severe mental illness are more dangerous than others; and flaws in a widely used criminal justice algorithm for assessing child pornography recidivism.

Mark Costanzo

Mark Costanzo received his PhD in applied social psychology from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He is a professor of psychological science at Claremont McKenna College and a member of the plenary faculty at Claremont Graduate University. He has published research on a variety of law-related topics, including police interrogations, false confessions, jury decision-making, sexual harassment, attorney argumentation, alternative dispute resolution, and the death penalty. Professor Costanzo is author of the books Dismantling the Death Penalty: Research-Based Answers to the Essential Questions (Oxford University Press, 2025) and Psychology Applied to Law. He has co-edited four books, including Expert Psychological Testimony for the Courts and Violence and the Law. His video-based research tool — The IPT-15 (developed with Dane Archer) — has been used in hundreds of universities, businesses, and other organizations to teach about the interpretation of nonverbal behavior.

Professor Costanzo has served as a consultant for more than 400 criminal cases and has provided expert testimony in state, federal, military, and juvenile courts. He is the recipient of Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring Awards from the American Psychology–Law Society, the Western Psychological Association, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, and the Society for the Teaching of Psychology. In 2025, he served as President of the Western Psychological Association.

Daniel Krauss

Daniel Krauss completed a joint-degree program in psychology and law at the University of Arizona, receiving his JD and then his PhD in clinical psychology and psychology, policy, and law. He is the Crown Professor of Psychology and a George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College and is a member of the plenary faculty at Claremont Graduate University. Professor Krauss has published a large number of research articles and book chapters relating to clinical psychological evaluations for the courts, legal and psychological expertise, and jury decision-making. He is co-editor of The Law and Public Policy: Psychology and the Social Sciences book series published by the American Psychological Association Press and co-author (with Bruce Sales) of The Psychology of Law: Human Behavior, Legal Institutions, and Law in that series. He is also co-author of Forensic Mental Health Practice and the Law: A Primer for Clinicians, Researchers, and Consultants (Oxford University Press, in press).

Professor Krauss is licensed to practice law in Arizona, is a member of the United States Supreme Court bar, and has served as the United States Supreme Court Fellow to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. He is a licensed clinical psychologist in the state of California; is a diplomate in forensic psychology, board certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology; and has served as president of the American Board of Forensic Psychology. Professor Krauss was a recipient of the Early Career Research Award by the Western Psychological Association. He was also awarded Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring Awards by the Western Psychological Association and the American Psychology–Law Society. He is a fellow of the Western Psychological Association, the American Psychological Association, the Society for Empirical Legal Studies, and the Association for Psychological Science.