The American Psychology-Law Society aspires to excel as a valuable, effective and influential organization advancing the science of psychology-law and the translation of psychology-law knowledge into practice and policy, serving as:
- A uniting force for psychology-law science and practice;
- The major catalyst for the stimulation, growth and dissemination of psychology-law science and practice;
- The primary resource for all psychology-law scholars and practitioners and for members of other disciplines with interests in psychology-law science and practice;
- The premier innovator in the education, development, and training of psychology-law scientists, practitioners and educators;
- The leading advocate for psychology-law knowledge and practice informing practitioners, policy makers and the public to use psychology-law knowledge in the pursuit of justice for all citizens;
- A principal leader and global partner promoting psychology-law knowledge and methods to improve justice in diverse, multicultural and international contexts; and
- An effective champion of the application of psychology-law to promote human rights, dignity and justice.
Mission
The mission of the American Psychology-Law Society is to enhance well-being, justice, and human rights through the science and practice of psychology in legal contexts.
Core Values
The American Psychology-Law Society commits to its vision through a mission based upon the following values:
- Continual pursuit of excellence
- Knowledge and application based on methods of ccience
- Outstanding service to its members and to society
- Social justice, diversity and inclusion
- Ethical action in all that we do
Strategies for Fulfilling Mission and Vision
Encourage interdisciplinary research on important social problems, promote cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration, and encourage interdisciplinary research across different societies, divisions and disciplines.
- Promote and advocate for federal research funding for Psychology-Law issues.
- Disseminate important findings and promote evidence-based approaches to practice and policy.
- Provide research mentoring for junior colleagues and students.
- Encourage diversity and inclusion in research training.
- Support international engagement in psychology-law training.
- Promote the ethical conduct of psychology-law research.
- Develop reporting standards for empirical research and encourage the sharing of research data and meta-data. Continually assess the need for new psychology-law publications.
- Develop a section of the website that offers resources for clinicians such as practice documents or links, to practice documents.
- Develop a web page that directs members-with explanations-to a collection of free sites for looking up cases, statutes and regulations.
- Develop focused forensic psychological listserves.
- Develop an online forum for brief, lightly edited practice-oriented articles in an “open journal” format.
- Disseminate information about cases relevant to forensic psychology practice.
- Develop a forensic mentoring service.
- Publish a listing that identifies members by a limited number of specialty practice areas, made accessible to attorneys.
- Continue to maintain a strong focus on professional growth and development for students and early career professionals
- Continue to develop and distribute materials that help support and advance innovative teaching and pedagogy.
- Continue to recognize teaching and mentoring excellence in psychology and law.
- Continue to help further the careers of junior- and senior-level professionals in the field of psychology and law.
- Continue to provide continuing professional education in psychology-law for psychologists and explore avenues for providing continuing education for attorneys.
- Continue and bolster efforts to attract new members, improve our efforts at member retention, and diversity membership with particular attention to under-represented groups and professions.
- Continue efforts to serve our current membership through programming, services, and other efforts directed toward underrepresented groups, students, early career professionals, practitioners, attorneys and researchers.
- Continually reviews governance operations with the goal of improving effectiveness and efficiency.