Dr. Chris Kunkle is a forensic and clinical psychologist and serves as deputy director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections. Kunkle is a longtime criminal justice adjunct professor and co-founded the Cold Case Analysis Center at The College of Saint Rose.
A former president of the American Investigative Society of Cold Cases, Kunkle now brings his expertise to the Criminal Investigation Resource Center at Russell Sage College, where he is co-founder and associate director.
We asked him about forensic psychology and what drew him to the field.
How does someone become a forensic psychologist?
If you want to be in private practice, do court evaluations, and be able to call yourself a forensic psychologist, you have to go to a doctoral program – either a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology or Psy.D.
It’s better if the doctoral program is in clinical psychology rather than strictly forensic psychology – very few programs in the country are specific to forensics, and this will limit your options after graduation and may impact your license eligibility in some states. In many programs, you can do forensic clinical rotations for those experiences.
I did a Psy.D. at the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University, and they had three tracks – one was family violence, so I did coursework in the family violence track. I covered the serious mental illness track with my dissertation on violence risk assessment and mental illness, and then I did clinical rotations that were forensic – including prison work, outpatient court-ordered treatment, and forensic hospital units
If you really want to be a forensic psychologist, you need to be willing to move because there are fewer positions. You need to be OK with working in the state hospital or prison system or getting one of those psych evaluator jobs for sexual violence predator programs. There are definitely jobs in the field, but you might need to be mobile if you want to grow your experience and expertise.
What about other jobs working with offenders or victims?
If you want to practice outside of being a forensic psychologist but in a related role, you need to at least get a master’s degree, and make sure that you’re getting a degree that makes you license eligible somewhere you want to live. Good options are master’s programs in social work or mental health counseling. I hire a ton of mental health counselors and social workers in corrections.
You can always get back on the doctoral track after you finish your master’s degree if you want to become a forensic psychologist. All kinds of students who apply to Psy.D. or Ph.D. programs are licensed in something else (MSW, LMHC, LPC, etc.).
What can I do with a bachelor’s degree in forensic psychology?
With a bachelor’s degree, if you don’t want to go on to a master’s program, you can get rehab counseling positions because you have a human services degree, or you may be able to get an addictions counselor job if you get additional certifications. You can go into law enforcement, work in victim advocacy, or go to law school.
What made you want to become a forensic psychologist?
I was a chemistry undergrad, and I started minoring in forensic science at the end of my chemistry degree. I became intrigued with that, and I kind of knew I was more interested in behavior, but I had a science degree. I got a job with a crime lab. I just wasn’t a lab science guy. It’s not me, but I wanted to stay in the field.
I think what was most intriguing is you get the mental health part, which is interesting, but there’s the criminal element and all the meandering and issues that make things more complex and interesting.
I was also influenced at a young age by a friend’s murder, and that’s really driven my passion for the field and my interest. That’s not all of it. If it were just that, I would have burned out a long time ago. Each case is a mystery. I end up getting involved in a lot of complex cases both on the clinical and investigative side.
