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11 Behav. Sci. & L. 1 (1993)

handle is hein.journals/bsclw11 and id is 1 raw text is: Behavioral Sciences and the Law, Vol. 11, 1-2 (1993) Introduction to this issue INTRODUCTION TO JURISPRUDENCE In the past two decades there has been a continual growth of scholarship relating social science to law. While a considerable amount of research is theoretically rooted in psychology and other social sciences, there recently has been an increasing interest expressed in developing research from theoretical roots found in the law. More specifically, there is interest in articulating the parameters and issues of jurisprudence from psychological and other perspectives. As an outgrowth of this interest, this volume assembles articles that address questions of jurisprudence, ordering them in manner to first introduce then elaborate upon various approaches to jurisprudence. The first article serves as an introduction. Mark Small defines the nature ofpsycho- logical jurisprudence and briefly reviews three current approaches to the construction of a psychological jurisprudence. The three approaches reviewed are: (a) a psychologi- cal jurisprudence as put forth by Gary Melton, (b) an emerging jurisprudence put forth by proponents of cognitive science, and (c) therapeutic jurisprudence as detailed by David Wexler and associates. The next article by David Wexler discusses therapeutic jurisprudence within a context of changing legal scholarship. Professor Wexler argues that the current flux in mental health law in particular has left an opening for the interdisciplinary approach of therapeutic jurisprudence. The following article by Robert Schopp addresses the issue of how to balance the conflicting interests of liberty and therapeu- tic effectiveness within therapeutic jurisprudence. The remaining articles flush out alternative perspectives on the law. The article by Michael Perlin posits that sanism, an irrational prejudice, infects legal decision making. The result is a flawed law and legal practice in which social science is inappropriately used. Norman Finkel provides a poignant example of the misunder- standing and misuse of social science in analyzing the Supreme Court's juvenile death penalty cases. In contrast, Richard Wiener's empirical review of psycholegal research examines the empirical support for a normative foundation of psychological jurisprudence. The results draw into question some of the assumptions made in the psychological jurisprudence literature. The manuscript by Dennis Fox challenges current thinking on the topic of jurisprudence. Professor Fox proposes that scholars consider radical social change rather than the modest liberal reforms that could be accomplished through current approaches to psychological jurisprudence. A final note should be made concerning the length of the articles. With one excep- tion, our reviewers suggested that each of the articles could be improved by making additions (e.g., adding clarifying examples). Indeed, jurisprudence is not a topic © 1993 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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