Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

fill this substantial gap in the holdings of academic, pro-

fessional, and personal libraries. It is our hope that this

resource will be of immense help for scholars, practition-

ers, and students of psychology and law.

Organization of the

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The Encyclopedia of Psychology and Lawaddresses the

interface of the two named disciplines and draws from

the related discipline of criminal justice. As is typical of

encyclopedias, the entries in the Encyclopedia of

Psychology and Laware listed in letter-by-letter order,

in this case from the Ackerman-Schoendorf Parent

Evaluation of Custody Test (ASPECT) to Wrongful

Conviction (our efforts to identify key concepts in “X,”

“Y,” or “Z,” were unsuccessful). The enthusiastic reader

who tackles this two-volume set from beginning to end

will learn a great deal about the trees but little about the

forest, for alphabetical order corresponds with no other

meaningful organizing principle among these headwords.

Readers are strongly advised, therefore, to study

or at least consult the Reader’s Guide. The Reader’s

Guide organizes the headwords into meaningful

themes as follows:

• Criminal Competencies


• Criminal Responsibility


• Death Penalty


• Divorce and Child Custody


• Education and Professional Development


• Eyewitness Memory


• Forensic Assessment in Civil and Criminal Cases


• Juvenile Offenders


• Mental Health Law


• Psychological and Forensic Assessment Instruments


• Psychology of Criminal Behavior


• Psychology of Policing and Investigations


• Sentencing and Incarceration


• Symptoms and Disorders Relevant to Forensic
  Assessment


• Trial Processes


• Victim Reactions to Crime


• Violence Risk Assessment

Each entry falls into at least one of the Reader’s

Guide categories, and many entries appear in multiple

categories. The Reader’s Guide itself provides one

approach to partitioning the field of psychology and law.

Although we make no claims that our list of headwords is

exhaustive, the relative size of the Reader’s Guide cate-

gories probably provides an estimate of the relative atten-

tion paid to these topics in the scholarly literature. For

example, Eyewitness Memory is a very popular field of

study and a very well-populated Reader’s Guide category.

Brewing the EEnnccyyccllooppeeddiiaa

Developing the list of headwords was a most unusual

task. We used somewhat of an “hourglass” approach in

developing the headword list. First, we developed the

Reader’s Guide—that is, the set of categories under

which the entries would be classified. Guided by a vari-

ety of resources at our disposal (e.g., psychology and law

textbooks, journals, library databases), we developed a

set of categories that seemed to us to span the breadth of

psychology and law. Using these categories, we devel-

oped several drafts of a headword list to the point at

which we were ready to receive additional expert input.

To obtain such input, we assembled an advisory board

consisting of 17 distinguished scholars and practitioners

from the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia.

The scholarship and practice interests of this group are

diverse and span the broad field of psychology and law.

This distinguished group included previous and current

editors of psychology and law journals, past presidents

of professional organizations of psychology and law,

authors of numerous books and articles on psychology

and law topics, and experienced practitioners in the

forensic arenas. Members of the advisory board were

sent the draft list of headwords and asked to recommend

additions, deletions, and modifications to the list and to

nominate authors for the headword entries. Their

responses were enormously helpful in refining the list of

headwords and identifying experts as potential contribu-

tors. The advisory board played a very significant role in

shaping the content of the Encyclopedia of Psychology

and Law. Its members also demonstrated strong enthusi-

asm for the project as a whole, confirming my belief that

this resource will be important and useful.

The suggestions provided by the advisory board

were integrated, and a near-final draft of the headword

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