Psychology and Law

As this chapter—and this book—make clear, the held of law and psychology has experienced considerable growth in the past two decades. Indeed, during that period concepts such as the insanity defense, risk prediction, scientific jury selection, “repressed” memories, and, we say reluctantly, criminal profiling have been the topics of considerable media attention and public debate. Along with the hype that has accompanied these and other topics within law and psychology, there has been a concomitant profusion of empirical research. The subsequent chapters in this book show that although progress has been made during this the field’s “developmental phase,” there is still much room for the field to grow and develop.