Behavioral Sciences and the Law Behav. Sci. Law 20: 309–315 (2002) Published online in Wiley Interscience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/bsl.501 ESSAY Rethinking Justice Mark A. Small, J.D., Ph.D.,* and Robin Kimbrough-Melton, J.D. Changes in the way people marry, bear children and live together, combined with the changing nature of support for families, has put pressure on the justice system to adjust to new family and community realities in order to accomplish justice goals. Although the entire legal system is implicated by the changing nature of families and com- munities, most scholars and practitioners have focused on the judicial system and those courts most relevant to family issues: namely, the juvenile, family, and criminal courts. As scholars and practitioners began to ‘rethink justice,’ whole new reform movements of therapeutic jur- isprudence, restorative justice, and community justice (among others) have emerged to offer new paradigms for the administration of justice. In this essay we discuss ways in which families and the justice system interact to strengthen and weaken each other to accomplish justice goals. Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. The changing nature of family and community life poses significant challenges for the administration of justice in the 21st century. Changes in the way people marry, bear children and live together, combined with the changing nature of support for families, has put pressure on the justice system to adjust to new family and community realities in order to accomplish justice goals (Kimbrough-Melton & Small, in press). Although the entire legal system is implicated by the changing nature of families and communities, most scholars and practitioners have focused on the judicial system and those courts most relevant to family issues: namely, the juvenile, family, and criminal courts. As scholars and practitioners began to ‘rethink justice,’ whole new reform movements of therapeutic jurisprudence, restorative justice, and community justice (among others) have emerged to offer new paradigms for the administration of justice. To be successful, any rethinking of justice is going to require more than an extended discussion and debate among scholars and practitioners as to what might Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. *Correspondence to: Mark A. Small, Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life, 158 Poole Agricultural Center, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, U.S.A. E-mail: msmall@clemson.edu Mark Small is professor of psychology at the Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life, Clemson University. Robin Kimbourgh-Melton is Director of the National Center on Rural Justice and Crime Prevention and associate professor at the Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life, Clemson University.