Sociology Of Criminal Law Research Articles

The concept of “criminal law risk” in the sociology of criminal law: the experience of theoretical understanding

The article is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of the concept of criminal law risk, which has become relevant in modern legal discourse. Various methodological approaches to understanding criminal law risk are being investigated. The paper also examines the theoretical concepts of criminal law risk, which have been highlighted in criminal law science in recent years, and also provides some classifications of such risks. Based on the analysis of theoretical material, the author concludes that it is necessary to bring the criminal law understanding of risk closer to other concepts of risks that prevail in other socio-humanities. Special attention is paid to the sociological theory of risk developed by Niklas Luhmann, who considers risk through the prism of systemic theory, emphasizing the social aspects of risky behavior and their impact on social development. The results of the work can be used for further theoretical understanding of criminal law risks, as well as for the development of practical recommendations for their management and minimization in various fields of activity, including innovative ones.

On the correlation of criminal sociology, criminology and sociology of criminal law

The author of the article considers the problem of the correlation of such areas of legal science as criminal sociology, criminology and sociology of criminal law. There is still no consensus in the modern doctrine regarding the place in the system of legal science and the subject of these areas. Thus, some scientists identify criminal sociology with criminology, and others - with the sociology of criminal law. With the help of the historical and legal method, the author demonstrates the development of the sociological trend in Western and domestic legal thought, which took shape at the end of the XIX century in criminal sociology (in Western science - criminal sociology), or criminology. Using logical and comparative methods, the author comes to the conclusion that the term "criminal sociology" is synonymous with criminology, which was used in Russian science at the end of the XIX century. The sociology of criminal law became the subject of scientific discussions already in the Soviet legal science in the 1970s and 1980s. The author joins the position of scientists that the sociology of criminal law serves as a section of criminal law, but states the absorption of criminology research issues included in the field of sociology of criminal law. The expediency of distinguishing the subject areas of criminology and sociology of criminal law is noted, leaving behind the latter the social conditionality and effectiveness of criminal norms, the improvement of criminal law and the practice of its application.

Institutionalization of Sociology of Criminal Law in the history and theory of legal science

The paper aims are to highlight the process of institutionalization of sociology of criminal law, identify epistemological origins and formulate theoretical and methodological foundations of one of the most important areas of legal knowledge. The paper considers the role of the largest experts in the field of history and theory of legal doctrines, analyzes the views of E. Ferry, E. Ehrlich and other thinkers and justifies the priority of domestic lawyers in the use of sociological methods of analysis of criminal phenomena and social processes, in the formation of sociology of criminal law as an interdisciplinary field of jurisprudence. Special attention is paid to systematization of the accumulated research experience, the role of the sociology of law in regulatory enforcement of the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 204 of May 7, 2018 "On the national goals and strategic objectives development of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2024", and developed by the Russian Government's National projects designed to achieve economic breakthrough in the country's development.

Welfare, corporatism, and criminal justice: comparing Durkheim and the new institutionalists

ABSTRACT Émile Durkheim known among other things for his pioneering sociology of criminal law was also a corporatist theorist and can be interpreted as a predecessor for an institutionalist approach that has recently gained popularity in comparative criminal justice. Durkheim suggested an inverse relationship between the intensities of ‘repressive’ regulation and ‘restitutive’ welfare state regulation. Contemporary institutionalist research has arrived at the same conclusion, but the connection between Durkheim’s theory and the empirical observations of modern comparative research has gone largely unnoticed in both legal scholarship and sociology. Correcting this omission might prove useful for substantive theory: Apart from welfare state strength, neo-institutionalist research has also associated lenient criminal law with corporatist political economy and consensus democracy. Durkheim’s political sociology proposes an answer for the interrelationship between these factors. Durkheim considered social corporatism a democratic institution and as such a precondition for a democracy capable of building the collective restitutive regulation that could alleviate society’s reliance on punitive justice as a basis for social cohesion.

Legacies of Legal Realism: The Sociology of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice

In this article, I trace the history of the sociology of law from its roots at Yale Law School to the present. The legal realists, situated at Yale Law in the 1930s, saw the law as an instrument of policy. Building on this foundation, the Yale Law faculty pioneered the sociology of law in the 1950s, and the Russell Sage Foundation supported the then-emerging field's development in the 1960s. Philip Selznick was a major theorist and institution builder in the field, and my own writing has stressed how the sociology of law has challenged American ideology regarding economic, gender, and social equality. Nowhere is this more evident today than in the current racial distribution of the prison population. The legal realist vision first developed at Yale Law—of constitutional law as an instrument of social policy—was also confirmed by the most recent 2012 US Supreme Court decisions on immigration and health care.

How ownership of penal history was lost: An anti synthesis of modern criminal law

Some writings in philosophy of history, legal sociology, law and economics have speculated, with more or less academic rigor, that history of crime and punishment might be synthesized and explained in a short sentence. From Marx to Durkheim, these thinkers seem to believe that penal evolution merely translates a political expression of power. But by changing the scholarly point of view, one might just see the exact opposite. As the meaning of penal system became gradually saturated, and consequences of punishment became more and more incomprehensible, postmodern historiography can reverse this synthesis and tell the tale of how all ownership of penal history was lost, assuming it was ever possessed. Key words: Efficiency, neo-Marxism, path dependency, postmodernism, sociology of criminal law.

Moral indignation, class inequality and justice

Svend Ranulf’s characterization of criminal law as a ‘disinterested tendency to inflict punishment’ challenges the conventional view that whereas crime may express emotion, emotion is extinguished in the operations of law. This is because Ranulf argues that criminal law arises through middle-class moral indignation. Thus an emotion, moral indignation, links social structure—in the form of class configuration, and social action—to the formation of criminal law. In the discussion to follow, Ranulf’s thesis is situated in the development of the sociology of criminal law, critically evaluated, and reformulated. The continuing relevance of Ranulf’s framework is also indicated.

Emergence of Anti-Prostitution Law In Japan—Analysis from Sociology of Criminal Law

In analyzing the process of creating criminal law, Howard Becker pointed out elements such as moral entrepreneurs, availability to the mass media, and political maneuvering. In this article the author analyses how these elements are seen in the emergence of Anti-Prostitution Law in Japan. According to historical documents Christian groups worked as moral crusaders in the purification movement before World War II. But after the war secular groups, especially female groups, became the main entrepreneurs for the enactment of Anti-Prostitution Law. In those countries where believers in a monotheistic religion like Christianity are the majority of the population, moral entrepreneurs may play an important role in creating criminal law. On the other hand, Japan does not have many such believers. Most Japanese, influenced by Shinto, are tolerant of different religions. Therefore, in the emergence of criminal law, moral crusaders who are interested in forcing their own morals on others are rarely seen. The author ...

Law, Social Standing and Racial Disparities in Imprisonment

A central and recurring concern in the sociology of criminal law is racial disparity in imprisonment-blacks are much more likely than whites to be imprisoned for crimes. Sociological theories disagree over the sources of imprisonment disparity. Prior research has ignored the social, economic, and legal characteristics of states and regions of the country that may contribute to disparity. The present study finds differences in the social standing of blacks relative to whites that explain substantial and statistically significant variation in racial disparity in imprisonment across states after racial differences in involvement in crime are controlled. Blacks are more likely than whites to be imprisoned in states where the black population is a small percentage of the total population and predominantly urban. The implications of these findings for a structural theory of punishment are discussed. Over the past decade, racial and ethnic disparities in imprisonment have provoked national concern. While blacks and other racial minorities constitute a relatively small share of the general population, they make up a very large share of federal and state prison populations. In 1982, blacks made up 12 percent of the U.S. population and 48 percent of the prison population.' Such disparity continues to fuel debate about the treatment of minorities in the administration of criminal justice (Blumstein 1982; Hagan 1974a; Kieck 1981; Langan 1985). One writer described the debate as one of the most distressing and troublesome aspects of the operation of the criminal justice system in the United States (Blumstein 1982, p. 1259). *We thank Paul Burstein, Herbert Costner, Avery Guest, James Inverarity, Joe Weis, L. Wesley Wager, and two anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions. The project reported in this paper was sponsored by a grant from the Legislature of the State of Washington to the Institute for Public Policy, Graduate School of Public Affairs, University of Washington. Address correspondence to George S. Bridges, Department of Sociology-DK40, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. ? 1988 The University of North Carolina Press

The Sociology of Law.

This article and bibliography is a trend report on the discipline of the Sociology of Law that criticically reviews some recent published literature in this field seen by the writer to be of interest. The paper is divided into five main parts and contains an extensive annotated bibliography. The five parts of the report deal with published research in the following areas: (i) Theoretical issues in the sociology of law; (ii) Lawyers and legal services; (iii) Courts and dispute processing; (iv) Policing and the Sociology of Criminal Law; and (v) Law-Making and Social Change.

Policing and the Sociology of Criminal Law

Policing and the Sociology of Criminal Law

Book Review: The Sociology of Criminal Law

Book Review: The Sociology of Criminal Law

The Sociology of Criminal Law: Evolution of Deviance in Anglo-American Society

The Sociology of Criminal Law: Evolution of Deviance in Anglo-American Society

Book Review: The Sociology of Criminal Law, by Robert M. Rich

Book Review: The Sociology of Criminal Law, by Robert M. Rich

On the Sociology of Criminal Law

On the Sociology of Criminal Law

On the Sociology of Criminal Law

This paper relates the revival of interest in the sociology of law, and in particular criminal law, to recent changes of perspective in the field of criminology. It considers the debate between conflict and consensus theorists over the nature of the criminal law and argues that efforts to settle the dispute in favor of one model or the other are somewhat misdirected. An attempt is made to reconcile the two viewpoints and to suggest how remaining points of disagreement can be used to stimulate more productive research.

Crime, Law and Social Structure. Part I: Methodology

The differentiation of normative facts from non-normative ones, or legal norms from other social norms, of penal law from other legal rules provides the distinctive structure of criminology, that which denotes specific social data and establishes their significance for criminology.... But the major accomplishment is that Sociology of Law is unified by its ultimate reference to actual legal rules. Sociology of Criminal Law, is accordingly, that division of legal sociology which deals primarily with social phenomena relevant to the norms of penal law; hence Criminology, in this view, is synonymous with Sociology of Criminal Law.2