Public Policy in Legal Psychology

Full course description

To adequately prepare students for the job market, it is important that they develop skills related to policy development. In this 4-week course, students will learn the basics of public policy in legal psychology, and learn how to write a policy report on a relevant topic.

Students will work in subgroups and select a topic of their interest at the beginning of the academic year (e.g. “Should the lie detector be used in the assessment of sex offender recidivism?”; “How to adequately assess post-traumatic stress disorder in asylum seekers?”; “Is there a reliable profile of a lone-acting terrorist?”; “Can we increase the successful detection of child abuse in schools?”).

Groups will be coached by an expert staff member who will supervise the writing of the policy report. Students are expected to select relevant research papers and perform desktop research into existing policies and where possible, work with existing databases, such as the one from the Wetenschappelijk Onderzoeks en Documentatie Centrum (WODC). Lectures will be given by policy makers from the field. End product will be a (short) policy report including clear practical guidelines. This report will be presented to a panel of experts.

The final assessment for this course is pass or fail - and not a numerical grade between 0,0 and 10,0.