Therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) is a term first used by Professor David Wexler, University of Arizona Rogers College of Law and University of Puerto Rico School of Law, in a paper delivered to the National Institute of Mental Health in 1987. Along with Professor Bruce Winick, University of Miami School of Law, who originated the concept with Wexler, the professors suggested the need for a new perspective, TJ, to study the extent to which substantive rules, legal procedures, and the role of legal actors (lawyers and judgesprimarily) produce therapeutic or antitherapeutic consequences for individuals involved in the legal process.
Black's Law Dictionary, 9th edition, 2009, defines 'therapeutic jurisprudence' as: "The study of the effects of law and the legal system on the behavior, emotions, and mental health of people: esp, a multidisciplinary examination of how law and mental health interact. This discipline originated in the late 1980s as an academic approach to mental health law." [1]
[edit]History
In the early 90’s, legal scholars began to use it when discussing mental health law, including Wexler and Winick's 1991 book, Essays in Therapeutic Jurisprudence. The TJ Approach soon spread beyond mental health law to include TJ work in criminal law, family and juvenile law, health law, tort law, contracts and commercial law, trusts and estates law, disability law, constitutional law, evidence law, and legal profession. In short, TJ became a mental health approach to law generally, and these advances were documented in Wexler and Winick's 1996 book, Law in a Therapeutic Key: Developments in Therapeutic Jurisprudence. See David B. Wexler, The Development of Therapeutic Jurisprudence: From Theory to Practice, 68 Revista Juridica Universidad de Puerto Rico 691-705(1999).
The approach was soon applied to the way various legal actors--judges, lawyers, police officers, and expert witnesses--play their roles, suggesting ways of doing so that would diminish unintended antitherapeutic consequences and increase the psychological well-being of those who come into contact with these legal figures. In 1999 in a Notre Dame Law Review article (Hora, Schma and Rosenthal, “Therapeutic Jurisprudence and the Drug Treatment Court Movement: Revolutionizing the Criminal Justice System’s Response to Drug Abuse and Crime in America,” 74 NDLR 439 (1999),) TJ was applied to drug treatment courts (DTC) drug court for the first time and the authors asserted that DTCs were TJ in action and that TJ provided the jurisprudential underpinnings of DTCs. TJ has emerged as the theoretical foundation for the increasing number of "problem-solving courts" that have transformed the role of the judiciary. These include, in addition to DTCs, domestic violence courts, mental health courts, re-entry courts, teen courts, and community courts. Winick and Wexler described this new judicial model and demonstrated how principles of TJ can be used by the judges in these new courts in their 2003 book, Judging in a Therapeutic Key: Therapeutic Jurisprudence and the Courts.
[edit]Reframing roles
Therapeutic Jurisprudence also has been applied in an effort to reframe the role of the lawyer. It envisions lawyers practicing with an ethic of care and heightened interpersonal skills, who value the psychological well being of their clients as well as their legal rights and interests, and to actively seek to prevent legal problems through creative drafting and problem-solving approaches. The impact of TJ on lawyering was documented in Stolle, Wexler, and Winick's 2000 book, Practicing Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Law as a Helping Profession. TJ also has begun to transform legal education, in particular clinical legal education. These developments were documented in a 2005 symposium issue of the St. Thomas University Law Review, "Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Clinical Legal Education and Skills Training." In 2008, Wexler published an edited volume dedicated to therapeutic jurisprudence and the criminal defense attorney. The book is entitled Rehabilitating Lawyers:Principles of Therapeutic Jurisprudence for Criminal Law Practice(Carolina Academic Press 2008).
[edit]Notes
- ^ Black's Law Dictionary 9th ed. (West Group, 2009)
[edit]External links
- Professor David Wexler's faculty profile
- therapeuticjurisprudence.org
- Professor Bruce J. Wincik's webpage
- Australasian Therapeutic Jurisprudence Clearinghouse
- University of Miami Therapeutic Jurisprudence Center
- WFPL News: State of Affairs on Therapeutic Jurisprudence, Thursday, April 1, 2010
- Law Therapy - An Australian perspective in law as therapy for a litigant in person who knows the ropes.
"The approach was soon applied to the way various legal actors--judges, lawyers, police officers, and expert witnesses--play their roles, suggesting ways of doing so that would diminish unintended antitherapeutic consequences and increase the psychological well-being of those who come into contact with these legal figures."This is an implied wink and a nod to All actors in our Legal System that they are not only Allowed, but Encouraged, to commit Perjury because it's Therapeutic. Judges, Lawyers, Police Officers, and Expert Witnesses. All of them.
Therapeutic Jurisprudence is the death of the Rule of Law and the imposition of Anarchy pursuing the Illegal Protection of Special Interests.
When Officers of the Court are defacto encouraged to omit pertinent facts, such as the Suicide/Homicide factor, the Medicare/Medicaid FRAUD factor, the Civil Rights Violation Factor, and even Expert Witnesesses are delivering their dissertations/sworn testimony colored/skewed/perjured by Their view of this nebulous, Politicization called "Therapy" which is nothing more or less than Bait and Switch, then the Law itself no longer means Anything, and it is not worth the paper it's written on.
BUT, as you can see, the System Knows best, especially when it comes to Other people's Moods and Thoughts.
Which is How America wound up with This, from Psychiatry Ground Zero where you can't kick over a rock without a half dozen Therapeutic Illuminati scuttling out from under it.
San Francisco
And thanks to our national fascination with FREE STUFF, Nobody's paying attention.
Weaselzippers has;
Number of Americans On Food Stamps Hits Record High, 46.7 Million People…
Otherwise known as “mission accomplished” in the Obama administration.
Via Bloomberg News:
Food-stamp use reached a record 46.7 million people in June, the government said, as Democrats prepare to nominate President Barack Obama for a second term with the economy as a chief issue in the campaign.HT: Bridget
Participation was up 0.4 percent from May and 3.3 percent higher than a year earlier and has remained greater than 46 million all year as the unemployment rate stayed higher than 8 percent. New jobless numbers will be released Sept. 7.
“Too many middle-class families who have fallen on hard times are still struggling,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in an e-mailed statement today. “Our goal is to get these families the temporary assistance they need so they are able to get through these tough times and back on their feet as soon as possible.”
Food-stamp spending, which has more than doubled in four years to a record $75.7 billion in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2011, is the USDA’s biggest annual expense. Republicans in Congress have criticized the cost of the program, and the House budget plan approved in April sponsored by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the party’s vice-presidential nominee, would cut expenses by $33 billion over 10 years.
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