This webinar explores therapeutic jurisprudence, an approach to law that aims to positively impact the psychological wellbeing of the accused person. The case for therapeutic jurisprudence is particularly strong when we consider questions about how society treats individuals with severe mental illness diagnoses and intellectual disabilities. How does society “make the punishment fit the crime” when the circumstances are complicated, and what available approaches might be better?

The presenters both spent years as public defenders and mental health advocates before they became law professors, representing individuals in the criminal justice system and with mental disabilities (often, both) at every court level from police court to the US Supreme Court. They have collaborated on multiple books and articles that consider a wide range of related issues – sex offender law, the death penalty, civil commitment, quality of counsel, defendants with autism, defendants with traumatic brain injury, and more — from the perspective of therapeutic jurisprudence, and seek to offer alternatives to our current broken and corrupt systems. This webinar conversation will focus on these questions and offer ideas and resources for the way forward.