CHILDREN AND THE LAW: EXAMPLES OF APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY IN ACTION

Each year, increasing numbers of children come into contact with the legal, social service, and child welfare systems around the world, often as a result of child maltreatment, parental separation/divorce, and delinquent behavior. As a result, children represent “a large and growing legal constituency, one that possesses a special set of constraints involving basic developmental competencies, including cognitive, social, and emotional, that may constrain their effective participation” (Bruck, Ceci, & Principe, 2006, p. 777). In response to these trends, the amount of research concerning children and the law has grown rapidly and continues to grow, making it one of the fastest-growing areas in all of developmental psychology (Bruck et al., 2006). Lawyers, judges, social workers, jurors, parents, and others must make important (often life-transforming) decisions about children's lives in different contexts every day. Psychological research can and should guide these crucial decisions. But does it?.