Are law enforcement agencies still using ‘psychics’ like Sylvia Brown to locate missing persons or to solve unsolved crimes? Why do they do this when there is absolutely no proof that they are ‘psychic’??
Also, I remember a case of a police officer who was not allowed to serve because his IQ was too high. Are all high-IQ applicants screened out of the police force? Why is this done??
Thanks.
Answer–They don’t.
Many “psychics” claim to have been used by the police, but it’s a lie. No police department uses psychics.
Sometimes psychics send in unsolicited offers of help, but the cops merely listen politely, smile, nodd, & file it all under “kooks”.
After all, “psychic” evidence cannot be corroborated, & is thus inadmissible in court.
The lying claims of so-called “psychics” that assert police asking for help merely prove the dishonesty of the fraud-raddled fortunetelling community. Swindlers & looneys, one & all.
A lot of people believe in that sort of crap, cops included.
They’re usually desparate to solve the crime.
They figure it can’t hurt.
I don’t know about the high-IQ. Sounds like an urban legend to me.
I also found this-
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/toosmart000908.html
There was a murder in my home town 20 years ago, of a 20 year old young lady who was shot as she was opening the jewelry store where she worked. The police had no leads.
A few months ago, the police made an arrest. In the early newspaper reports, it was reported that sometime after the murder, a psychic told police that the murder weapon was in the local river, near a bridge where a major street crosses, and that the police searched the river and found the murder weapon there.
A few days later, they published more details. The police did search the river and found a gun, but it wasn’t the type used, and had been in the river since long before the murder. So not only did the psychic not help the police, he wasted their time. But someone who happened to read the first article and not the second would have a completely wrong idea of what happened. I think that this is probably pretty typical of how the public perceives psychics helping police.
You can lay good odds that that psychic now proudly touts that first article around with him/her, or puts it on their webpage if they have one. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Emotional vampires, that is all psychics are.
Let’s start with a reminder that there is still no credible evidence, within the realm of conventional science, supporting the notion of psychc ability.
Lots of stories about psychics successfully assisting the police come from the psychics. Some of these tales are just made-up. Some of them contain a grain of relevance to an actual crime case, but you can rely on the psychics to be very selective and to embroider the plain truth.
Most serving police officers have little time for psychics. However, they are seldom at liberty to simply shout “Nutcase” and slam the door. They could be accused of failing to follow-up all possible leads. The kind of investigations most likely to attract ‘psychic’ help are high-profile cases which have attracted public sympathy and outcry, e.g. the abduction of a small child. These are precisely the same cases where the police want to be seen to be following up every lead, because if they don’t they may discourage people with real, useful info from coming forward.
There are some experienced police officers who do believe in psychics, and who think psychics should be involved in cases. Some have written books on the subject. This doesn’t alter the fact that there is no good reason to think psychics achieve any results that cannot be attributed to guesswork, extrapolation from the known facts or luck. Also, they are quite good at playing the numbers game. The more guesses you make about the outcome of a crime, the more likely it is that you will get something right. After the event, it’s easy to write about the guesses that came true, and ignore the rest.
Some psychics claim the police have appointed official liaison officers to work with them, which is touted as some sort of victory or endorsement. Sometimes these claims are uncheckable, unchecked and could be lies. More often, the police have to find a way to deal with “the psychic nutter” who gets in touch twice a day to waffle on about hs latest ‘impressions’, thus using up police time and clogging up the investigation. One diplomatic way to do this is to say “Our officer will contact you twice a week to take down notes of your input”. It’s a case of trying to minimise the nuisance.
If you try hard, you can find isolated cases where a ‘psychic’ got involved in a case, only made one or two specific suggestions, and was proved correct. These rare examples have to be seen against a backdrop of thousands of psychics spouting thousands of guesses about thousands of crimes. One or two are bound to get lucky.
Typical high odds guessing how original, gee I bet if you dredged under every bridge in the US you would find TONS of discarded weapons.
I wonder if she could have picked up a “psychic signature” on the weapon… would have been great if she confirmed it as the murder weapon when the police knew it was not.
There apparently was a case somewhere of a guy who was denied employment as a city police officer because his IQ was too high. It got some publicity because he sued. He lost. Apparently the police department had some evidence that, basically, smart people got bored with police work too quickly and therefore did not stay cops very long. So the court decided the regulation was rational.
I did think it was interesting, however, that the courts tend to be very suspicious in cases where an applicant is denied a position based on a LOW IQ test. I guess it’s just like the parent of any schoolchild will tell you: IQ tests that say you’re smart are reliable; IQ tests that say you’re dumb aren’t.
i’m not absolutely sure, but i think i remember Uri Geller claiming, on BBC’s HardTalk, that he was used by the CIA at some point.
that was, ofcourse, before i even knew about the existence of the SDMB.
it is my view now that psychics are frauds.
Some years ago, over here, a psychic spontaneously offered his help but had the misfortune of guessing right about the place the body of a missing person was to be found. He possibly expected praises, but was actually detained as a result (it eventually turned out he wasn’t involved in the crime).
Why do some police use psychics? I’d suspect it’s because the proportion of gullible people in the police force is roughly equivalent to the proportion of gullible people in the general population.
I’m one of those people who think there are real psychics.
I also believe however that 99.7% of the psychics out there are frauds.
“Ooo I’m having a vision! I can see something!”
Its called daydreamering you ass… Frauds annoy me…
I would suspect that anyone with any amount of real ability would realize that he/she won’t be taken seriously. Thus they just keep to themselves.
I don’t think its worth it to use psychics law enforcement. You may as well go out and ask a random person what they think happened.
It’s pretty much all been said, but as someone whose degree is in Criminology I would like to assure you that the claims made by “psychics” of “assisting the police” are pure bullshit.
What tends to happen in practise is that these people make highly emotive and unverifiable assertions in the media, then make a claim that the police are not “listening” to them, which results in the police getting a whole lot of phone calls, emails or letters supporting the “psychic’s” viewpoint. All of which only adds to the background “noise” with which the investigative officers have to deal.
When has any “psychic” and/or their supporters offered their assistance in a “low-profile” case?
I’m an atheist, and a scientist of sorts (there are many who would contend that as a social science, criminology doen’t count as a “real” science); I’ve certainly had experiences which I cannot explain in terms of my current understanding of science (or indeed anyone else’s).
Are there people who have observed relevant fact relating to crime which they didn’t immediately, recall? You bet. You don’t even have to argue the existence of a deity, let alone some “supernatural” force in order to substantiate these claims.
“Psychic”, however, has become a dirty word not because of it’s origins and what it originally meant, but because of what those people who now sell their services as $5 per minute imply by their use of the world.
It’s a con - but it’s a con in which the victims are willing conspirators. They want to believe, just like Fox Maulder.
Psychic? What fucking bullshit. Give met the age, gender, socio-economic status of a child and their family history and I can take a very good guess not only at their fate but the mile radius, the time frame, and the condition in which you will find their body. Lots of the time - happily - I’ll be wrong; but criminologists rarely make public projections, whereas “psychics” often do (and charge for them).
Criminologists work the numbers - we do so within the context of the legal framework and we are very often wrong. But we do NOT charge by the minute or by the hour for opinions which we are very aware are only our interpretation of the facts as presented to us.
“psychic”, smychic - these people are opportunitst, pure and simple.
It’s pretty much all been said, but as someone whose degree is in Criminology I would like to assure you that the claims made by “psychics” of “assisting the police” are pure bullshit.
What tends to happen in practise is that these people make highly emotive and unverifiable assertions in the media, then make a claim that the police are not “listening” to them, which results in the police getting a whole lot of phone calls, emails or letters supporting the “psychic’s” viewpoint. All of which only adds to the background “noise” with which the investigative officers have to deal.
When has any “psychic” and/or their supporters offered their assistance in a “low-profile” case?
I’m an atheist, and a scientist of sorts (there are many who would contend that as a social science, criminology doen’t count as a “real” science); I’ve certainly had experiences which I cannot explain in terms of my current understanding of science (or indeed anyone else’s).
Are there people who have observed relevant fact relating to crime which they didn’t immediately, recall? You bet. You don’t even have to argue the existence of a deity, let alone some “supernatural” force in order to substantiate these claims.
“Psychic”, however, has become a dirty word not because of it’s origins and what it originally meant, but because of what those people who now sell their services as $5 per minute imply by their use of the world.
It’s a con - but it’s a con in which the victims are willing conspirators. They want to believe, just like Fox Maulder.
Psychic? What fucking bullshit. Give met the age, gender, socio-economic status of a child and their family history and I can take a very good guess not only at their fate but the mile radius, the time frame, and the condition in which you will find their body. Lots of the time - happily - I’ll be wrong; but criminologists rarely make public projections, whereas “psychics” often do (and charge for them).
Criminologists work the numbers - we do so within the context of the legal framework and we are very often wrong. But we do NOT charge by the minute or by the hour for opinions which we are very aware are only our interpretation of the facts as presented to us.
“psychic”, smychic - these people are opportunitst, pure and simple.
If you know any of the 0.3% with real psychic ability, you can inform them that their million dollars lies waiting to be picked up at the JREF.
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