Handbook of Police Psychology

The Handbook of Police Psychology represents the contributions of over thirty police psychologists, all experts in their field, on the core subject matters of police psychology. Police psychology is broadly defined as the application of psychological principles and methods to law enforcement. This growing area includes topics such as screening and hiring of police officers; conducting screening for special squads (e.g., SWAT); fitness-for-duty evaluations; investigations, hostage negotiations; training and consultation, and stress counseling, among others. The book examines the beginnings of police psychology and early influences on the profession such as experimental investigations of psychological testing on police attitude and performance. Influential figures in the field of police psychology are discussed, including the nation’s first full-time police psychologist who served on the Los Angeles Police Department, and the first full-time police officer to earn a doctorate in psychology while still in uniform with the New York Police Department.

Jack Kitaeff, Ph.D., J.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist in the Commonwealth of Virginia specializing in police and forensic psychology. He received his undergraduate education at Brooklyn College, and his graduate psychology education at the State University of New York at Cortland and the University of Mississippi. He received his law degree from the George Mason University School of law, and completed a legal clerkship with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Virginia.

Dr. Kitaeff completed a clinical psychology internship at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and served as a psychologist and Major in the U.S. Army Medical Service Corps. He became the first police psychologist for the Arlington County Police Department, where he established a pre-employment psychological screening program for police applicants. From 1984 to the present he has been the consulting police psychologist for numerous law enforcement agencies in the northern Virginia area, including the Arlington County Sheriff’s Office, among others. Dr. Kitaeff is an adjunct professor of psychology with the University of Maryland, University College. He is also a faculty member in the School of Psychology at Walden University. He is a Diplomate in Police Psychology from the Society of Police and Criminal Psychology, and a member of the American Psychological Association.

Dr. Kitaeff is the editor of Malingering, Lies, and Junk Science in the Courtroom (Cambria Press, 2007), and the author of Jews in Blue (Cambria Press, 2006), and Forensic Psychology (Prentice-Hall, 2010).