Much Ado About Nothing? A Critical Examination of Therapeutic Jurisprudence

In the decades since the 1970s there have been several movements designed to impact or alter the workings of the legal system. The most lasting and widespread of these movements has been the development and systemic incorporation of mediation or Alternative Dispute Resolution, especially in the arena of family law but also impacting community disagreements, a variety of commercial disputes, and civil cases in general. However mediation did not significantly impact the practice of criminal law. Rapid growth in the number of individuals being processed through the criminal courts during the 1980s and 1990s shifted the focus to the criminal courts and made reforms to the processing of crime more than desirable. Several models for reforming the law to include a response to criminal transgressions emerged, among them Restorative Justice, Problem Solving Courts, and Therapeutic Jurisprudence was not initially conceived as a response to crime