I was going to post this in gq, but I’ll amend the question…
Are taxpayers in 2006 actually paying fraud “psychics” or investing time in investigating their claims? I guess I want a factual answer, but it would be nice for some accountability for this bullshit in the end, if they are. I can see how this crap might happen 40 years ago, but is it still going on today?
I certain that no police department actually pays psychics a single penny for their services; there’s better ways to spend a limited budget and the negative publicity would be too great. Psychics who work with the police are either volunteers or do it for the publicity.
I seem to recall Penn & Teller stating on one of their Bullshit episodes that no psychic has ever successfully solved a case for a police department.
Don’t recall them saying if they were HIRED or not.
Googling “police hired psychic” yielded at least one example:
And here’s a Straight Dope Mailbag answer from 2000: If psychics are frauds, why do police keep asking them for help?
Robert Ressler, pioneering profiler and author of Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI , defends the practice. I wouldn’t call his argument persuasive, but some law enforcement professionals think it’s reasonable if you’re out of leads and desperate.
Yes some police use psychics. For the same reason regular people use them - there are gullible people everywhere.
If you want to know who believes in the supernatural, look around you. To hear the churches tell it, most people believe.