Functional Apologies in Law

Authors

Alfred Allan, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow

Document Type

Journal Article

Publisher

Taylor and Francis

Faculty

Faculty of Computing, Health and Science

School

School of Psychology and Social Science

RAS ID

5470

Comments

Allan, A. (2008). Functional apologies in law. Psychiatry psychology and law, 15(3), 369-381. Available here

Abstract

Apology has recently emerged from being a relatively obscure construct in law to one that is prominent in various areas of law through actual or proposed law reforms. Whilst law reform is welcome, it is important that changes should be grounded in scientifically accepted theories and supported by research data and, furthermore, that the effectiveness of such endeavours should be evaluated before they are further expanded. This cannot be said of the growth of the use of apology in law. In this article I use a model of apology developed by Slocum, Allan and Allan (2006) to examine why apologies may be functional in law. I also examine what form an apology may have to take to be functional in criminal, civil, and constitutional law respectively

DOI

10.1080/13218710802101589