Research Catalog

Title

The law & society reader / edited by Richard L. Abel.

Publication

New York : New York University Press, c1995.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Abel, Richard L.

Description

xii, 450 p.; 27 cm.

Summary

This book seeks to provide answers to everything you ever wanted to know about the law - except what the rules are or ought to be. For centuries, the law has been considered a neutral, objective arena that sets societal standards and in which conflicting forces resolve disputes. More recently, however, the interaction between law and society has been recognized as a two-way street: society clearly exacts a considerable influence on the practice and evolution of law. Further, the discrepancy between what the law mandates and what the social reality is has served as evidence of the chasm between theory and practice, between the abstraction of law and its actual societal effects. Examining such issues as the limits of legal change and the capacity of law to act as a revolutionary agent, the essays in this book offer a well-rounded introduction to the relationship between law and society. By focusing on flashpoint issues in legal studies - equality, consciousness and ideology, social control - and making ample use of engaging case studies, The Law and Society Review provides an invaluable resource for scholars and students alike.

Alternative Title

Law and society reader

Subject

Sociological jurisprudence

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 431-450).

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

What we talk about when we talk about law / Richard L. Abel -- The oven bird's song: insiders, outsiders, and personal injuries in an American community / David M. Engel -- Going to court: strategies of dispute management in an American urban neighborhood / Sally Engle Merry -- The management of disputes: automobile accident compensation in Japan / Takao Tanase -- Community justice, capitalist society, and human agency: the dialectics of collective law in the cooperative / Stuart Henry -- The selectivity of legal sanctions: an empirical investigation of shoplifting / Erhard Blankenburg -- The paradoxical impact of criminal sanctions: some microstructural findings / Sheldon Ekland-Olson, John Lieb, Louis Zurcher -- Plea bargaining and its history / Albert W. Alschuler -- Holistic effects in social control decision-making / Robert M. Emerson -- Mandatory sentencing and the abolition of plea bargaining: the Michigan Felony Firearm Statute / Milton Heumann, Colin Loftin -- The New Dutch and German drug laws: social and political conditions for criminalization and decriminalization / Sebastian Scheerer -- Worker safety, law, and social change: the Italian case / Kitty Calavita -- Organizational compliance with court-ordered reform / Sheldon Ekland-Olson, Steve J. Martin -- Penetrability of administrative systems: political 'casework' and immigration inspections / Janet A. Gilboy -- Why the 'haves' come out ahead: speculations on the limits of legal change / Marc Galanter -- Race and prosecutorial discretion in homicide cases / Michael L. Radelet, Glenn L. Pierce -- Structure and practice of familial-based justice in a criminal court / Kathleen Daly -- The uses of history: language, ideology, and law in the United States and South Africa / Elizabeth Mertz -- Lay expectations of the civil justice system / William M. O'Barr, John M. Conley -- Law and social relations: vocabularies of motive in lawyer/client interaction / Austin Sarat, William L.F. Felstiner.

ISBN

0814706177

LCCN

^^^95006532^

OCLC

• 32133065
• SCSB-9890016

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library