Lawmakers and judges often enact and enforce laws and policies that impact youth. The extent to which these legal actions are sensitive to juveniles' perspectives and experiences has changed recently. Compared to an earlier time when juvenlies were treated the same as adults, many policies are now created with the needs of juveniles in mind, thanks in part to psychological studies that have revealed that the decision making, behavior, and cognitions of children vary drastically from those of adults.

Unique in its angle and in the breadth of social issues it covers, Psychology, Law,...

Answers to many legal questions often depend on our understanding of the relationship between the human brain and behavior. While there is no evidence to suggest that violence is the sole result of cognitive impairment, research does suggest that frontal lobe impairment in particular may contribute to the etiology of violent behavior.

Murder in the Courtroom presents a comprehensive and detailed analysis of issues most relevant to answering questions regarding the link between cognitive functioning and violence. It is the first book to focus exclusively on the etiology and...

When should we try to prevent suicide? Should it be facilitated for some people, in some circumstances? For the last forty years, law and policy on suicide have followed two separate and distinct tracks: laws aimed at preventing suicide and, increasingly, laws aimed at facilitating it.

In Rational Suicide, Irrational Laws legal scholar Susan Stefan argues that these laws co-exist because they are based on two radically disparate conceptions of the would-be suicide. This is the first book that unifies policies and laws, including constitutional law, criminal law, malpractice law,...

With the world's prison population continuing to grow and the number of secure inpatient beds in psychiatric hospitals on the rise, establishing valid and reliable methods of identifying individuals who will commit violent acts is an important global health and public safety issue. One approach to identifying future offenders is through the use of risk assessment--unstructured and structured methods of predicting the likelihood of antisocial behavior. Although much has been written on the performance of risk assessment in research settings, little is known about current standards of...

Adolescence, Privacy, and the Law provides a foundation for understanding privacy rights and how they relate to adolescents. Roger Levesque argues that because privacy is actually an inherently social phenomenon, the ways in which adolescents' privacy needs and rights are shaped are essential to society's broader privacy interests. A close look at empirical understandings of privacy, how it shapes development, and how privacy itself can be shaped provides important lessons for addressing the critical juncture facing privacy rights and privacy itself.

Adolescence, Privacy, and...

Few resources exist for those interested in developing their professional competence vis-a-vis ethics in forensic psychology, with the most recent text being published more than a decade ago. However, forensic psychology is changing quickly and there is a need for a current guide on ethics within the field.

The Ethical Practice of Forensic Psychology highlights the ethical standards and guidelines set forth by the American Psychological Association's (APA) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (EPPCC) and the Specialty Guidelines for Forensic...

Although the jury is often referred to as one of the bulwarks of the American justice system, it regularly comes under attack. Recent changes to trial procedures, such as reducing jury size, allowing non-unanimous verdicts, and rewriting jury instructions in plain English, were designed to promote greater efficiency and adherence to the law. Other changes, such as capping damages and replacing jurors with judges as arbiters in complex trials, seem designed to restrict the role of laypeople in trial outcomes. Whether these innovations are implemented to facilitate the administration of justice...

The Science and Law of School Segregation and Diversity examines the sources of the disconnect between scientific findings on school segregation and how the U.S. legal system addresses it; evaluates these sources' empirical and legal foundations; explains why they persist; and reveals what can be done about them.