Discussion week 2

Law and Human Behavior, Vol. 21, No. 1, 1997

From the Editor

As I began to think about a plan for managing Law and Human Behavior, I reviewed the editorial policies of the previous editors of this journal (Bruce Sales, Michael Saks, and Ronald Roesch) and found that they defined the journal as "a multidis- ciplinary forum for the publication of articles and discussions of issues arising out of the relationship between human behavior and the law. legal system, and legal process" (inside back cover of the journal). Although the journal sometimes pub- lished shorter pieces such as commentaries, notes concerning research issues in practice, adversary forum debates, and book reviews, the longer articles that made up the bulk of the text were "original research, reviews of past research, and theo- retical studies that make significant contributions to our understanding of the re- lationship of human behavior to the law, the legal process, and the legal system." This policy has served the journal well. As I take over the responsibilities of editor, I cannot help but be impressed by the quality of the material that has appeared in Law and Human Behavior over the years, and I am continually made to feel proud by the comments of colleagues from law colleges, medical schools, social science programs other than psychology, and of course from other psychologists. There is no need to alter the basic policies of Law and Human Behavior, and I will take no actions to do so. Nonetheless, as I sampled some of the articles published under the watches of the various editors of our journal, I did find some differences in the types of articles, which I assume resulted, at least in part, from differences in the emphases of the editors and the editorial boards.

My plan is to continue to emphasize articles that are of the highest quality of scholarship and which approach problems of law and human behavior from an interdisciplinary point of view. The best manuscripts will be those that present analyses of legally relevant issues from a theoretical and empirical base within the social sciences. Articles that are empirical should report data collected in accord- ance with current standards of rigorous scientific investigation, and those that con- sist primarily of commentary should offer scholarship in the best traditions of law and social science. My own view of sociolegal scholarship is that the best work goes beyond sophisticated social science methodology applied to problems of law and legal process. The best work is truly interdisciplinary in that it begins with a careful analysis of law, the legal system, or legal process, and proceeds by offering a mean- ingful social scientific analysis of the problem. The most interesting and persuasive empirical investigations are those that use our most powerful empirical methods to test insights drawn from social scientific theory and research.

1 0147-7307/97/0200-0001$12.50/1 c 1997 American Psychology-Law Society/Division 41 of the American Psychological Association

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Law and Human Behavior will continue to publish articles about traditional topics such as jury decision making, eyewitness identification, and the impact of expert witnesses; however, it is my goal to follow the direction of recent editors and broaden the journal's interest in areas of substantive law including criminal, civil, and constitutional law. The journal will be especially interested in manuscripts that offer social scientific insights in areas including, but not limited to, mental health law, tort law, property law, criminal and civil procedure, and evidence. Also encouraged will be applications of social science that add to our understanding of the legal system and legal process. I look forward to reviewing manuscripts that contribute to our knowledge about the policies and functions of the police, law firms, the courts, jails, and prisons. Research and other scholarship in these areas ought to include work of clinical as well as experimental psychologists in the form of field studies, policy analyses, assessment and treatment studies, and program evaluations, provided that such scholarship adds general knowledge about an area and does not simply describe single interventions and applications that are unlikely to add to our general understanding of these topics.

Scholarship in the areas of forensic clinical psychology and psychiatry is vital to the interdisciplinary study of law and human behavior The previous editor has made progress in increasing the number of submissions to the journal in traditional forensic psychology topics. As a result there has been an increase in the number of published articles in this area in recent years. I plan to continue working in this direction. The journal continues to welcome submissions of high-quality research and scholarship in areas including, but not limited to, forensic assessment, advances in the treatment of defendants and offenders, development of assessment instru- ments, prediction of future dangerousness, reduction of future dangerousness, and assessment in civil cases (e.g., development of evaluation protocols and instruments for measuring damages and injuries). Scholarship that applies social science to the law, legal system, and legal process may include policy analyses such as evaluations of the impact of court decisions, legislative initiatives, and administrative holdings on the everyday thoughts and behaviors of citizens in the community. Investigations in this area should include the effects of alternative dispute resolution procedures, jury selection, and trial consulting on the behavior of consumers and professionals alike. Precious little is known about the impact of changes in law at the local, na- tional, or international levels, and yet it is knowledge about the effects of law in our everyday lives that may make the greatest contributions of social science to law. Submissions that examine the influence of law on behavior are as welcome as articles that test assumptions about how human behavior influences the enactment of law.

I encourage authors who are considering submitting papers on any of the sub- stantive topics outlined above to submit them to Law and Human Behavior provided that the work is theoretically interesting, is legally relevant, and demonstrates em- pirical rigor and/or conceptual clarity. Of course, the editorial process favors crea- tive and insightful analyses. Of special interest is the application of new and interesting methodologies that sociolegal scholars are only beginning to employ. It is important that researchers in social science and law continue to make use of the most current approaches to gathering quantitative and qualitative data and not sim-

From the Editor2

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ply rely on the favored standbys: correlational studies, laboratory experiments, and quasiexperimental field studies. Social science and law researchers should buttress their methodologies with causal modeling, case studies, ethnographies, and combi- nations of quantitative and qualitative investigations in the same study.

Law and Human Behavior will continue to publish the adversary forum, short research notes, commentaries, notes concerning research issues in practice, and book reviews. The journal will publish one special edition each year on a topic that has received attention in the broader areas of social science or law (e.g., the first special edition will feature topics related to gender and law), and I will add to our list of encouraged articles scientific review papers that have been sponsored by the American Psychology-Law Society. The scientific review papers scrutinize the social science that is available on topics that are currently of special interest to the courts, legislatures, or administrative bodies for the purpose of analyzing the state of the science that relates to important policies and legal doctrines. As described in the American Psychology-Law Society's newsletters, the scientific review papers provide ample opportunity for those who are not authors of the manuscripts to present their own dissenting points of view. All submissions to the journal will undergo blind review and prospective authors will receive timely feedback from the review- ers. The journal will continue to rely heavily on the members of its editorial board to review manuscripts. However, researchers not on the board will be invited to review areas that are not covered by the editorial board.

In summary, Law and Human Behavior is of excellent quality and enjoys aca- demic status of the highest distinction. I am grateful to my predecessors for making the journal an excellent and highly regarded outlet for social science and law schol- arship. The emphasis that I plan is intended to enhance the stature of an already outstanding journal. I am sure that the quality of the submissions will continue to demonstrate the highest standards of scholarship, and I look forward to extending the substantive content of our work into new and exciting areas of law and social science.

Richard Wiener

3From the Editor

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