Applying emerging knowledge of human nature, development and behavior to the Justice System.

What 21st-Century law enforcement professionals should know about human behavior and responses.

What skills are needed to offset abuse of power and to effectively serve and protect the citizenry?

Social psychology and social neuroscience research findings on groupthink should be incorporated into professional and occupational training programs, particularly for those who end up positions of power--having authorization to control the behavior and physical mobility of other people. 

Occupations such as police officers, wardens, prison guards, secret service interrogators, nursing home or mental hospital orderlies, soldiers, military officers and strategists are all at increased risk for overreacting to perceived misbehavior of their charges. 

The Abu Grahib and Guantanamo Bay prison torture and abuse scandals are mere examples of countless stories chronicling the mistreatment of prison inmates and those in institutions around the U.S. and the world. 

The killing of Trayvon Martin gives new urgency to multiple questions about the effects of laws that support such acts of injustice. Issues to explore include: misperception of threat, impaired judgment, implicit bias, impulse control and obsessive disorders; as well as the group bias, denialism and system justification demonstrated by the responses of officials.