Predicting The Quantity of Law: Single versus Multiple Remedies in Sexual Harassment Cases

Abstract

Recently, Black's theory of law has been criticized for failing to capture quasi and de facto governmental social control institutions. A restatement of this theory introduces the idea of “more or less governmental social control” that encompasses government endorsement of private forms of social control or government delegation of social control powers to private parties. Drawing from this, we assess the utility of Black's theory by examining sexual harassment cases handled by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, a quasi-governmental body that has been delegated social control powers. Previous tests of Black's theory have relied primarily on criminal processes that often involve identifiable increments in law. While a sexual harassment case may be settled or dismissed, paralleling the criminal justice process of conviction or acquittal, further increments in law are less identifiable within this quasi-governmental institution. Using over 200 sexual harassment cases in Canada, we test several concepts from Black's theory for explaining decision making within a quasi-governmental social control institution and, specifically, for predicting whether single or multiple remedies are used to resolve these types of cases. Our results show some support for Black's theory, but demonstrate that whether a case was sent to conciliation played a greater role in predicting the quantity of law than the social structural dimensions emphasized by Black or the offense seriousness variables highlighted by more traditional criminal justice research.