The Psychology & Law Training Program emphasizes research training as well as training in applied work such as evaluation research and policy development. It will prepare students as academicians and as applied researchers able to provide professional psychological expertise to and within the criminal and civil justice systems. This program prepares students to develop and conduct independent basic science research in the domain of Psychology & Law.

The program includes social, cognitive, developmental, policy and decision sciences orientations. Scholarly activity by members of the program addresses issues such as: jury decision-making in criminal and civil cases (e.g., impact of pretrial publicity, expert testimony, legal instructions, juror characteristics, evidence presentation styles and technologies); the ability of jurors to understand and use scientific and probabilistic evidence; the plausibility of psychological assumptions built into legal rules of evidence and procedure; group processes in juries; jury selection by attorneys and social scientists; the accuracy of child and adult eyewitness identification and crime reports; adolescent brain development and risk-taking behavior; trauma and witness memory; the development and detection of deception; the impact of investigative procedures on witness memory; assessment of the utility and biases inherent in police procedures; police psychology; attributions of blame in sexual assault; the intersection of psychology, gender, and the law; impact of and responses to injustice; inter-group relations and prejudice; analysis of crime scenes and criminal behavior; and the psychology of confessions, false confessions and alibis.

Social justice is a shared value within the Psychology and Law Training Area. Our faculty and students are advocates for fairness and equity in both our research and actions. We recognize that, due in large part to discrimination, injustice, and systemic oppression, most researchers in the field of Psychology and Law do not reflect the characteristics of those who are most often affected by the system we study. As such, we are committed to changing the demographic profile of the researchers and teachers of Psychology and Law. We strive to diversify the field by training the next generation of diverse researchers, teachers, and leaders in the field. We hope to accomplish this mission by welcoming faculty with wide-ranging perspectives and identities into our program and by both educating and learning from students with various backgrounds.