Law and Psychology

This course compares legal and psychological approaches to human behavior and considers their interaction. Topics include criminal, ethnic, and racial profiling; true and false confessions; the insanity defense; civil and criminal commitment; expert witnesses; eyewitness identification and testimony; juries; punishment and rehabilitation; psychopaths and psychopathy; sexual behavior; and victimless crimes. It provides background in American law and in abnormal and forensic psychology and analyzes the roles of lawyers and of psychologists, in theory and in practice. It focuses on research in law and in psychology and neuroscience, and on case studies.