Peter Collins (psychiatrist)

For other people named Peter Collins, see Peter Collins (disambiguation).

Peter Ian Collins (born 1953) is a Canadian forensic psychiatrist. He is an expert on violent crime and has worked with criminal justice agencies in Canada and throughout the world, including INTERPOL, the FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Australian Federal Police and Europol. He frequently testifies as an expert witness on sexual homicide, pedophilia, child pornography, stalking, sexual assault, paraphilias, the insanity defense, suicide by cop, police crisis negotiations and post-traumatic stress disorder.[1]

Contents

Life and career

Collins obtained his Bachelor’s degree in psychology from The University of Western Ontario in 1975 and his Masters degree in applied criminology from the University of Ottawa in 1978. He earned his Medical degree from McMaster University in 1983. Collins completed his postgraduate medical training in Psychiatry at the University of Toronto in 1989.

Collins took a position at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, now part of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in 1989. His clinical appointment is with the CAMH Law and Mental Health Program. In 2004 he was promoted to Associate Professor at University of Toronto with the Department of Psychiatry in the Faculty of Medicine. He is also an Associate Clinical Professor with the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioural Neurosciences at McMaster University and has a Special Appointment to the College of Technology, the Graduate School, at Purdue University.

When the Royal Canadian Mounted Police established their Violent Crimes Analysis Section (later named the Behavioural Analysis Branch), in June 1990, Collins became a consultant, in December 1990, and continued with this position until 2008. As a member of the Behavioural Analysis Branch he was involved in the project that developed the Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System (ViCLAS) with Inspectors Ron MacKay (retired), Keith Davidson (retired) and Greg Johnson.

Collins became an in-house consultant to the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), in 1995, and is currently the Coordinator of Forensic Psychiatry for the Behavioural Sciences and Analysis Section of the OPP. He is also a consultant psychiatrist to the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist to the Profiling Unit of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and to the Behavioural Sciences Team of the Calgary Police Service. Collins has been a member of the Toronto Police Service Emergency Task Force (ETF) Crisis Negotiation Team since 1992.

In 1997, Collins was elected a member of the International Criminal Investigative Analysis Fellowship. In 2000, Collins was appointed a member of the INTERPOL Specialist Group on Crimes against Children. Collins is currently a Lieutenant-Commander in the Royal Canadian Navy Reserve and has served, on two deployments, in Southern Afghanistan.[2]

In his capacity as a forensic psychiatrist with the OPP Collins has been consulted, internationally, on numerous homicide investigations, including serial murder cases, sexual homicides and child abductions.[3][4][5] He has written on suicide by cop[6] and also coined the term gynandromorphophilia with Ray Blanchard to describe the sexual preference for transvestites, transsexuals, and she-males.[7][8] Following the 1993 raid on works by artist Eli Langer depicting children in sexualized themes, Collins stated that pedophiles would "love to have their hands on this."[9] Collins was critical of police profiling done in the Digna Ochoa murder.[10]

At the request of the Department of Justice, Collins testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness – Bill C-2: An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (Protection of Children and Other Vulnerable Persons) and the Canada Evidence Act - Ottawa, Ontario, 2 May 2005. He has also been involved in two joint presentations, on the topic of Child Pornography, to Members of Parliament - House of Commons, Ottawa, in June 1999 and April 2002. In April 2006 he presented to the Counter Terrorism Training Working Group – Institute of Intergovernmental Research & U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. on the topic of Source Development and Recruitment.

In the private sector Collins is a consultant with Hennes Paynter Communications, in Cleveland, Ohio and Martin & Associates Investigations, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Selected publications

Books

Book Chapters

Articles

Manuals

Reports

References

  1. ^ Campion-Smith, Bruce (December 3, 1989) Many judges unaware of devastation sex attacks cause women, forum told. Toronto Star
  2. ^ Fisher, Matthew (April 3, 2009). Canadian psychiatrist minding hearts and souls - of soldiers. National Post
  3. ^ Michaud, S. G., & Hazelwood, R. (2001). The evil that men do: FBI profiler Roy Hazlewood's journey into the minds of sexual predators. Macmillan, ISBN 9780312970604
  4. ^ Clark, D. (2002). Dark paths, cold trails: How a Mountie led the quest to link serial killers to their victims. HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, ISBN 9780002000789
  5. ^ McCrary, G. O., & Ramsland, K. (2003). The unknown darkness: Profiling the predators among us. HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, ISBN 9780060509576
  6. ^ Mohandie K, Meloy JR, Collins PI (2009). Suicide by cop among officer-involved shooting cases. Journal of Forensic Sciences. 2009 Mar;54(2):456-62. Epub 2008 Feb 6.
  7. ^ Blanchard R, Collins PI (1993). Men with sexual interest in transvestites, transsexuals, and she-males. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 181, 570–575.
  8. ^ Califia-Rice, Patrick (2003). Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism. Cleis Press, ISBN 978-1573441803
  9. ^ Tyler, Tracy (October 5, 1994). Artist's work fuels fantasy expert says: Pedophiles would 'love to have their hands on this.' Toronto Star
  10. ^ Diebel, Linda (2006). Betrayed: The Assassination of Digna Ochoa. Carroll & Graf Publishers, ISBN 9780786717538

External links