Although psychologists have related, scientifically and professionally,
to the law for over 50 years now, the two fields have not been
systematically integrated. Happily, that situation is changing today.
Psychologists and lawyers are becoming increasingly aware that laws are
based upon assumptions about human behavior, "assumptions about how
people act and how their actions can be controlled" (Special Commission
on the Social Sciences of the National Science Board, Knowledge into
Action: Improving the Nation's Use of the Social Sciences. Washington,
D.C.: National Science Foundation, 1969, p. 35), and that both fields
must be concerned with carefully investigating these assumptions and
communicating the findings to the legal community, in particular, and to
society, in general. This joining of efforts will ensure that our legal
system is not only more effective but also more just. Perspectives in
Law and Psychology is a regular series of volumes dedicated to this
goal. The work presented in this first volume was supported in part by
the National Institute of Mental Health, Center for Studies of Crime and
De.1inquency, through their grant (MH 13814) to the Law-Psychology
Graduate Training Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Funds
from that grant were used to invite six of the contributors to this
volume to participate in the first Law-Psychology Research Conference
(Michael Goldstein, John Monahan, Norval Morris, R.