Source: (2007) History of the Human Sciences. 20(2):51-70.
Law has been a close partner to sociology from its very beginning, and
the partnership often has proven to be extremely prolific for sociology.
Grand theories as well as vital conceptual tools can be counted among
its offspring. Both disciplines share the common ground of socio-legal
studies, which has developed into a nearly independent interdisciplinary
enterprise where legal scholars and sociologists happily meander between
the normative and the analytical. From the vast array of topics in the
field of socio-legal studies I select the sociology of criminal justice and
punishment in order to demonstrate the characteristics of this relationship.
The partnership between sociology and law emerged as part of the
modernization project in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the sociology
of punishment was part of this endeavour. Rooted in a strong tradition
of old (Durkheim) and new (Elias, Foucault) classics, recent developments
in this field are leaving the idea of an ‘unproblematically modern
punishment’ (Whitman, 2005a) behind, and new fields of inquiry for
comparative lawyers and sociologists are opening up. (author’s abstract)
Your donation helps Prison Fellowship International repair the harm caused by crime by emphasizing accountability, forgiveness, and making amends for prisoners and those affected by their actions. When victims, offenders, and community members meet to decide how to do that, the results are transformational.
Donate Now