Socio-legal studies have an important role to play in showcasing the important relationship that exists between law and study, especially the manner in which law can be seen to influence social policy and direct social events, giving society its much needed structure and balance. This report reviews three well known articles on socio-legal study and research and critically analyzes each and every one of them to assess the contribution that the articles make to the broader spectrum of socio-legal research by focusing specially on author arguments, socio-legal methods of enquiry used and the evidence produced to show the link between law and society.
Topic of the Article
The topic of the article is the role that litigation can play when it comes to ending the human rights issue of solitary confinement in the country of Canada. The article also focuses on the relationship that is shared between anti carceral movements in societies around the world and prisoner rights litigation.
Argument of the Author
The author examines the widespread predominance of solitary confinement as evident in Canada, both in the country’s federal prisons as well as in the territorial and provincial jails. Secondly, the author reviews present day litigation that aims at ending solitary confinement for prisoners, as practiced in both the USA and Canada. Thirdly, the challenges and possibilities of prisoner rights litigation are considered from a broader carceral state perspective. Finally, elements of prisoner abolitionist lawyer ethics are identified and examples are given, of anti carceral legal efforts. Through all these investigations and enquiries, what the author seeks to argue or establish is that litigation can play a largely positive role in bringing about an end to solitary confinement for prisoners in Canada, which is a human rights issue at the moment. The author vehemently believes the prisoner abolitionist framework as studied and used in several parts of the United States of America, is one that can prove to be exceedingly useful for promoting or at the very least ensuring human rights for prisoners in Canada, such as by setting them free from unjust prison terms like solitary confinement.
The author researches on the topic of the role of prisoner litigation and its role in ending solitary confinement for prisoners at work by extensively reviewing legal literature on prisoner litigation in Canada and in the United States. It studies all the prisoner laws and legal practices that are currently being implemented to keep or protect prisoners from being confined in jail cells indefinitely and in complete isolation. Advocacy and activism methods used by legal scholars and practitioners in the USA and Canada to end solitary confinement for prisoners are also reviewed and analyzed extensively by the author especially when it comes to identifying and giving examples of prisoner abolitionist lawyer ethics. All the laws, advocacy and activism methods are studied and interpreted by the author as objectively as possible to analyze the role that litigation could play, that is, most largely, a positive role, when it comes to ending unjust prison conditions like solitary confinement for several of the people facing jail term in Canada.
Evidence Used by the Author to Support Critical Arguments
The author points to the efforts that have been made in the USA and Canada, to implement prisoner litigation and alludes to how well know lawyers and legal practitioner and even legal scholars have successfully encouraged lawyers to be critical of the negative aspects of prisoner litigation. The author argues that this in turn has led to the creation of a prisoner abolitionist framework, which the author suggests, serves as evidence of the fact that prisoner litigation can be used to successfully terminate solitary confinement of prisoners at some point. The prisoner abolitionist framework is, in the opinion of the author, the legal framework that holds the key to ending solitary confinement of prisoners in Canada. Such a legal framework has the human rights of prisoners as it focuses and seeks to help them rather than penalize them for the negative things that they have done. This does not mean that the prisoner abolitionist framework turns a deaf ear or a blind eye to the wrongdoings of the prisoners. What it implies, is that it aims on securing the human rights of prisoners and ensuring that they are given dignity and are made to carry out the terms of their punishment under humane rather than unjust conditions.
Revelations about Law and Society in Article 2
The revelations that are made by the author in this chapter clearly indicate that the treatment and perception of black people in Canada, over the ages, and especially during the slavery and post slavery eras was influenced a great deal by the legislations that were put in place with regard to their rights, protection and even oppression. If the blacks in Canadian society were ever treated with dignity, it was because Canadian law gave blacks certain rights and freedoms to enjoy. If the blacks were treated cruelly by their white counterparts in Canada, it was because Canadian law very silently supported the circumstances or conditions in which white supremacist behavior was able to grow, develop and even flourish. Thus the social status of blacks in Canada is linked directly to the law of the land. The revelations thus made by the article through his discussions in the article are quite interesting to note. What seems evident to the reader upon going through this piece, is that compassion for the black people in Canada and the decision to accord them dignity is something that came about in society only because people felt compelled to follow the law and not disobey it. In other words, Canadian society was coerced into giving black people the dignity that was rightfully due to them as if they continued to ill treat them at a time when the law was not supportive on the behalf of black people, they could be tried under the new anti slave laws of the country and face imprisonment if necessary. Yet at the same, since the law of the land was supportive of the circumstances in which racist or white supremacist behavior was allowed to flourish, it seemed normal to the white people in Canada to be condescending in their view towards the blacks. What can be concluded from the very least by what the author has to say is that Canadians were law abiding and did not intend on violating legislation even though many of them want to treat black people with disdain. What can also be concluded is that primarily due to the support and dignity accorded to them by law, several black people in Canada were given the protection and status that they deserved.
Revelations Made about the Relationship in Law and Society in Article 3
When it comes to revealing a number of important insights about the relation between law and society, what this article manages to do points to the effectiveness of the different types of socio-legal methods that are used by social researchers to conduct a study on the role and influence of law in society as evidence of the fact that social researchers have a crucial role to play in when it comes to contributing to an understanding of, and influencing social policy. The author also reviews a wide range of socio-legal literature to demonstrate evidence of the fact that social research and the study of law are those that are linked quite closely to each other. What is highlighted in the process is the crucial significance of the research methods that are used by sociologists to study the way law can influence events in society. The author shows that the soundness of the socio-legal methods used by sociologists such as survey methods, experimental methods and observation methods are those that go a long way in showcasing the relationship between law practice and social policy and shows how sociologists end up influencing social policy in doing so. A major takeaway from this article is that if one has to successfully understand society and its mechanisms, one has to essentially understand all the laws that have been put in place to regulate society in the first place. It is only by engaging in a detailed study of the law of the land and social law in particular, can a researcher truly understand the various workings of that society, and the positive and negative influences or aspects prevalent in this society. The survey methods that are used by social researchers to carry out extensive studies on the legal frameworks prevalent in society, provide such researchers with an overview of what the laws pertaining to that particular society entail, and what rules and regulations the social citizens are supposed to abide by, if they are to be considered harmonious and positive for the society in which they live. Those who do not abide by such rules and regulations invariably become branded as anti-social elements and have a negative connotation about them. It is therefore imperative for social researchers to carry out an objective study of social laws and the legal framework of a country and of a specific society before getting into an in-depth study or understanding of its various dimensions, people, customers, traditions etc.
References
Parkes, D. (2017). Solitary Confinement, Prisoner Litigation, and the Possibility of a Prison Abolitionist Lawyering Ethic.Canadian Journal of Law & Society/La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société, 32(2), 165-185
Vago, S. (2015). Law and society. Routledge.
Walker, B. (Ed.). (2012). The African Canadian Legal Odyssey: Historical Essays. University of Toronto Press.
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