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Edith Cowan University

Jurisprudence

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A Cautionary Note On Therapeutic Jurisprudence For Aboriginal Offenders, Ann-Claire Larsen, Peter Milnes Jan 2011

A Cautionary Note On Therapeutic Jurisprudence For Aboriginal Offenders, Ann-Claire Larsen, Peter Milnes

Research outputs 2011

Therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) is a recent legal practice reform, requiring judges and lawyers to attend to offenders’ wellbeing. Despite being lauded as the ‘most prolific vector’ of the Comprehensive Law Movement, TJ has also been condemned as ineffectual, even dangerous. In this paper we review TJ in three sections: the problems TJ seeks to address, how TJ is applied and its requirements, and the new problems TJ produces. This paper exposes tensions between established legal principles and efficacy or recidivism concerns that drive the TJ agenda. It concludes that a judiciary that concerns itself with offenders’ social and psychological problems …