Law and Society Overview Quiz

Course Information

• Course Name: Law and Society
• Course Code: CJUS1203
• Credits: 3
• Contact Hours: 45 (45 hours theory)
• Prerequisites: None
• Co-requisites: None
• Semester: Not specified

Course Description

• Designed to provide understanding of national and global legal system changes due to crime dynamics.
• Examines trends in law enforcement, sentencing, drug laws, death penalty issues, and technological/social changes impacting the legal landscape.
• Includes alternative dispute resolution.
• Course is intended to be intellectually stimulating, insightful and thought-provoking.

Course Outcomes

• Understand legal concepts and theories, and their impact on society.
• Appreciate the law-making process and its organization.
• Demonstrate an understanding of law, social controls, dispute resolution and recognizing law as a social instrument of change.
• Understand the legal profession and lawyer discipline.

Unit I - Introduction

• Learner Outcomes: Analyze law's meaning and impact, explain types, roles, functions, and dysfunctions of law, compare and contrast societal paradigms.
• Content: Overview of law and legal systems, definitions of law, types of law, major legal systems worldwide (Romano-Germanic, Common Law, Socialist, Islamic), primary functions of law (social control, dispute resolution, social change), and dysfunctions of law. The course covers various paradigms of society, in particular the consensus and conflict perspectives; options for sociologists are also discussed.

Unit II - Theoretical Perspectives

• Learner Outcomes: Understand the evolution of legal systems, intellectual movements in law, and theories of law and society.
• Content: Evolution of legal systems (traditional, intermediary, contemporary), intellectual movements in law (conflict and Marxist approaches, critical race theory, critical legal studies, feminist, functionalist), theories of law and society (European pioneers, classical sociological theorists, socio-legal theorists, modern law and society theorists).

Unit III - Litigation and Law Making Bodies

• Learner Outcomes: Understand the court organization, litigation process, legislative process, law enforcement agencies, and organization.
• Content: Court organization and flow of litigation, participants in the legislative process, the legislative process, law enforcement agencies and their organization, and the course of litigation (civil and criminal proceedings).

Unit IV - Lawmaking Process

• Learner Outcomes: Appreciate perspectives on lawmaking, evaluate judicial and administrative lawmaking, understand influences on the lawmaking process, identify forces for law.
• Content: Lawmaking perspectives, legislation, administrative law-making (rulemaking and adjudication), judge-made law (precedents, statutory interpretation, constitutional interpretation), influences on lawmaking (interest groups, public opinion, social sciences, voices outside of academe, scholarly diagnosis, public interest groups, protest activities, and the media).

Unit V - Law and Dispute Resolution

• Learner Outcomes: Understand methods of dispute resolution and the court's role in dispute resolution.
• Content: Methods of dispute resolution (arbitration, conciliation, mediation), prerequisites for court assistance in dispute resolution, civil procedure rules and dispute resolution, disputes involving individuals, disputes between organizations.

Unit VI - Law and Social Control

• Learner Outcomes: Critique formal and informal crime controls, appreciate crimes without victims, discuss issues related to white-collar crimes, understand social control of dissent, evaluate administrative law and social control.
• Content: Analysis of "norms and mores" as instruments of social control, formal social controls (criminal sanctions, non-custodial sanctions, death penalty controversies), victimless crimes (drug addiction, gambling, prostitution), white-collar crime issues, social control of dissent, administrative law and social control (licensing, inspections, threat of publicity).

Unit VII - Law and Social Change

• Learner Outcomes: Examine the relationship between law and social change, evaluate social changes as causes of legal changes, discuss advantages of law in creating change, analyze limitations of law in creating change, explain factors contributing to resistance to change.
• Content: Interrelationship between law and social change, law's role in creating social change (positivism, naturalism, fear of punishment), law's limitations in creating social change (law as policy instrument, morality, values, social, psychological and cultural factors, economic factors).

Unit VIII - The Legal Profession

• Learner Outcomes: Examine the history and professionalization of lawyers, evaluate the evolution of the Jamaican legal profession, evaluate the contemporary legal profession, discuss roles and functions of law schools and the Bar Association.
• Content: History of legal profession, professionalization of lawyers, evolution of the Jamaican legal profession, contemporary legal profession, roles and functions of law schools, and the bar association. The course also discusses sources of legal employment and legal aid services, visibility and the earning capacity of attorneys, law schools, and the bar admission process. Finally, canons of the legal profession are addressed.

Methods of Delivery

• Discussion
• Lectures
• Guest lectures
• Interviews
• Research
• Observation
• Presentations
• Simulations
• Case studies and analysis
• Problem solving
• Debates
• Group/individual projects
• Research

Methods of Assessment and Evaluation

• Course work (40%): Case study and analysis, presentation/research
• Examination (60%): One compulsory case study and analysis, five essay questions (choose three)

Recommended Texts

• Barkan, S.E. (2009) Law and Society (1st ed.) Pearson Education, Inc. NJ: USA
• Vago, S. (2012). Law and Society, (10th ed.) Pearson Education, Inc. NJ: USA

Websites

• Ebscohost Databases
• Springer e-books

Test your knowledge on the fundamentals of the Law and Society course. This quiz covers key concepts, trends in law enforcement, and the impact of societal changes on the legal system. Evaluate your understanding of legal principles and the law-making process vital for navigating today’s complex legal landscape.