CJL 3038 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Conflict Resolution, Group Conflict, Social Control
22 May 2018
School
Course
Professor
Lecture 1.2
• Probably more scholarship has gone into defining and explaining the concept of law
than any other concept in sociology
o Your initial definition of Law.
• Cardozo (1924)
o A principle of rule of conduct so established as to justify a prediction with
reasonable certainty that it will be enforced by the courts if its authority is
challenged
• Holmes
o The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious
are what I mean by the law.
• Max Weber
o An order will be called a law if it is externally guaranteed by the probability that
coercion, (physical or psychological), to bring about conformity or avenge
violation, will be applied by a staff of people holding themselves especially ready
for that purpose.
- Pressure to comply must be external
- Pressures must involve coercion or force
- Officials must exist to apply this force.
• Donald Black
o Law is essentially governmental social control
- Law is the normative life of a state and its citizens, such as legislation,
litigation, and adjudication
- Several styles of law can exist in a society
• Accusatory Styles-
o Penal: The deviant is a violator of a prohibition and an
offender to be subjected to condemnation and
punishment.
o Compensatory: a person is considered to have a
contractual obligation, and therefore owes the victim
restitution.
• Remedial Styles
o Theapeuti: The deiats odut is defied as aoal
and the person needs help
o Conciliatory: Deviant behavior is one side of a social
conflict in need of resolution with no right or wrong
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- More than one of these may appear in any given conflict.
• Other definitions of law
o Systems of rules and regulation
o Forum for value inquiry
o Regime for the resolution of conflict
o Reflection of popular will
o Regime to preserve inequality and denial of freedom
• What do these definitions have in common?
o The paramount function of law is to regulate and constrain the behavior of
individuals in their relationship with one another
o Formal system embodying specific rules of conduct
o A guide for action or inaction
o Without interpretation and enforcement, law would remain meaningless.
Lecture 1.3
• Parable of the map
o What is said to be wise rules out what could be important
o What are our goals in studying the law?
▪ The benefits of many definitions
o Your initial map.
• Once a definition is reached, events are shaped to fit the definition
o Does this close us to possibilities that would disrupt our definition?
o What limitations might this create in studying the law?
• Benefits of many definitions.
Lecture 1.4
• Functions of Law
o Social Control
o Dispute Settlement
o Social Change
• Dysfunctions of Law
o Who is the law functional for?
o Conservative tendencies
o Rigidity in the formal structure.
• Social control
o Many methods of social control
o Law is a formal means of social control
▪ Formal social control
• Explicit rules of conduct
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• Planned use of sanctions to support the rules
• Designed officials to interpret and enforce the rules, and often
make them
▪ Legal institutions are responsible for creating and maintaining the rules
and norms that define deviant behavior.
• Dispute Settlement
o Alternative to other means of dispute resolution
o The law offers a formal means of dispute settlement
▪ Adjudication, mediation
• Social Change
o The law functions as a mechanism for social change
▪ Institutionalization of a norm for behavior
▪ Internalization of a behavior reflects new value.
• Dysfunctions of Law
o Is the legal system used to maintain and enforce current patterns of wealth and
status?
▪ Max Weber: defined law as coercive order; an order that has the
potential backing of the full force of the state
▪ Ideally, each citizen is equal before the law
• But is this the case?
o Donald Black
▪ Considers the law as governmental social control that makes use of
legislation, litigation, and adjudication
▪ Societies and organizations may have more or less law.
o Certain kinds of discrimination are inherent in the law itself.
▪ Rules, in principle, may apply to everyone
▪ However, legal authority falls unevenly across social place
• Social status greatly affects the use and application of the law
• Legislation can have highly stratified effects.
o Conservative Tendencies
▪ By establishing a social policy of a particular time and place or by making
the precedents of the past binding, the law exhibits a tendency toward
conservatism.
o Rigidity in the formal structure
▪ Once a law is in place, continuous revision and disruption is avoided in
the interests of predictability and continuity.
Lecture 1.5
• Paradigms in our society: Conflict vs. Consensus
o Why are law created?
o Do laws benefit some people more than others?
• Consensus Paradigm
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