PSYCHOLOGICAL-RESEARCH ON THE POLICE - AN INTRODUCTION TO A SPECIAL SECTION ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LAW-ENFORCEMENT

As a context for this special section, we surveyed the published research literature on the psychology of law enforcement in four specialty journals that feature law and psychology studies and two more broadly targeted scholarly outlets. The volume of research studies was scant and concentrated on two targets: clinical services to the police and eyewitness identification studies. We call for social scientists to engage in empirical study of psychological variables that affect the full spectrum of police activities.