Therapeutic jurisprudence: integrated inquiry and instrumental prescriptions

This paper considers the manner in which one could apply a therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) analysis to a controversial approach to the treatment of sex offenders. Rather than attempting to resolve the difficult questions regarding this form of intervention, however, this paper uses this issue as an opportunity to examine some theoretical concerns about the nature and limits of the TJ research program. As interpreted here, TJ consists of a program of scholarship and law reform intended to promote integration of conceptual, empirical, and normative inquiry. TJ does not in itself resolve normative issues, but it promotes integrated analysis that can sharpen our ability to articulate and examine those normative concerns. TJ remains normatively neutral at the levels of value and theoretical neutrality. Prescriptively, it cannot generate principled normative prescriptions, but it can generate instrumental prescriptions. The long-term measure of the TJ program rests upon its success in promoting innovative and integrated interdisciplinary scholarship and law reform.