Blog #2 || Psychics in Criminal Investigations

7/22 

The idea of using psychics in criminal investigations was basically new to me before taking this course. I had previously heard of this profession being used in law enforcement once in a great while, but I had no clue this was something that was actually really common to see even nowadays. A psychic is defined as someone who is “sensitive to nonphysical or supernatural forces and influences; marked by extraordinary or mysterious sensitivity, perception, or understanding.” In criminal investigations, psychics use their abilities to figure out information that might be harder, or impossible, for law enforcement to figure out such as locations, dates, times, etc. 

Historically, psychics were used by royalty, military chiefs, and religious leaders to predict future events and outcomes. The use of psychic abilities in legal investigations, however, was essentially non-existent until the first documented case in 1845. The use of these abilities has since grown in popularity because of popular media and attractiveness. Despite this, the use of psychics as an effective tool in criminal investigations has not been proven. In fact, various studies have shown that psychics “perform no better than chance under controlled test conditions nor do they perform any better than non-psychic test subjects to which they are compared.” If you just look at the stories of successful psychics, such as Allison Dubois, Kathlyn Rhea, and Noreen Renier, you wouldn't get this impression. The stories that get published are success stories, there are, according to this report, many stories of psychics involved in criminal investigations that are incorrect in their ideas.