When behavioral scientists and forensic mental health experts think of the law, especially criminal law, they often contemplate prosecutions, appeals, and correc-tionsรthose arenas in which they have traditionally made their most signiยฎcant contributions, but there is a great deal more to criminal law. Indeed, probably the bulk of what we call criminal law or criminal justice occurs well before prosecutors or the courts have any direct involvement.
Much if not most of the criminal justice system is administered not by lawyers, judges, or corrections personnel, but rather by a variety of government employees ranging from the local police ocer on the beat to federal agents who protect the life of the Presidentรfront-line personnel loosely characterized as ``law enforcement''. This issue of Behavioral Sciences and the Law examines a number of important issues related to law enforcement as it is practiced daily by these various ocers of the law.
In the ยฎrst article, an interdisciplinary team of social scientists (Randy Borum, Martha Williams Deane, Henry Steadman, and Joseph Morrissey) presents the results of a survey of 452 sworn law enforcement ocers from three agencies, each with a dierent system for dealing with one of the most common and potentially serious situations police ocers face: dealing with mentally ill people in crisis. In ``Police perspectives on responding to mentally ill people in crisis'', these authors report that, from the perspective of sworn police ocers, having a specialized team of ocers to meet the needs of mentally ill people in crisis is highly eective in keeping the mentally ill out of jail, minimizing the amount of time needed to respond to such calls, and maintaining the safety of the community.
In a second, somewhat related article, ``Mental health consultation to law enforcement: secret service development of a mental health liaison program'', Margaret Coggins and Marisa Reddy Pynchon of the United States Secret Service Behavioral Research Program describe their agency's development and use of a comprehensive, multi-dimensional model for interactions between the law enforcement and mental health systems with regard to assessing and preventing violent behavior.
In the next two articles, psychologists Joseph McCann, Hollida Wakeยฎeld, and Ralph Underwager examine the dicult and controversial area of incriminating statements (confessions'') made by criminal suspects to law enforcement ocers. In Coerced or nonvoluntary confessions'', Wakeยฎeld and Underwager note that confessions are sometimes false and/or coerced, and describe how expert testimony may help judges and jurors understand the circumstances that may have led to a nonvoluntary confession. In ``A conceptual framework for identifying various types of confessions'', McCann writes separately about much the same problem. He outlines an expanded framework, using a decision-tree model in which confessions are characterized according to a number of dimensions, such as veracity, truthfulness, legal culpability of the suspect, voluntariness, coercion, and whether or not the CCC 0735ยฑ3936/98/040391ยฑ02$17.50