SOC 5620 Sociology of Law

This course examines the role of government in the definition and control of deviant behavior. After establishing the distinctive characteristics of law as a form of social control, it surveys the major kinds of variation found in legal systems and examines how social factors predict and explain this variation, including differences in the day-to-day operation of legal agencies and the outcomes of individual legal cases. The course concludes with a discussion of what law may be like in the future, with special emphasis on changes made possible by advances in legal sociology. Throughout, the course draws on information from a wide variety of societies and historical periods, although it concentrates on the contemporary American experience.
Credits: 3.0