The police psychologist generally provides services to a police department as an employee or as a consultant. Progressive police departments often opt to hire psychologists as employees so they may tap their resources in such areas as employee assistance program development, counseling of police officers and families, stress management, health promotion, hostage and terrorism negotiation, critical incident debriefing, disaster intervention, community organization, criminal profiling, witness support and memory enhancement, crisis intervention for problematic arrestees, suicide prevention, police academy training, and police officer selection. Many police departments use a mix of psychologist consultants and employees. Because psychologists play an important role in policing, their credentials need to be screened carefully. Psychologists should meet minimum qualifications established by the American Psychological Association, and they need to understand police issues. Professional affiliations of the psychologist are particularly important in the provision of legal expertise to courts. In addition, police psychologists should have certain ethical qualifications and should be able to deal with unusual work assignments associated with meeting the needs of police agencies. 30 references