Can Therapeutic Jurisprudence Provide a Normative Link between Recent Trends in Criminal Law Theory and Criminal Justice Practices?

Abstract

This essay provides an overview of how the conception of therapeutic jurisprudence as applied to criminal justice provides the normative link between emerging, more contextualised theories of criminal law, and new practices and techniques at play in the criminal justice system. Because therapeutic jurisprudence seeks to engender a more holistic, community-based response to offending behaviour, it has the potential to facilitate the practical manifestation of the contextualised approach in criminal law theory, the purpose of both being to narrow the divide between the offender and his social and moral context.

Keywords: therapeutic jurisprudence, criminal law theory