@article{Westervelt_2010, place={Washington DC: American Sociological Association.}, title={The Sociology of Law}, url={https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/the-sociology-of-law}, abstractNote={What is "law"? Is justice blind? Do we want it to be? Do juries truly provide a "trial by one’s peers"? Does the legal system discriminate against people based on race, social class, gender, age and the like? These are just a few of the questions that we will be addressing during the course of the semester. My hope is that during this course you will learn a unique perspective on the law -- how it works, how it is made and meted out, and how it impacts on and is impacted by the larger culture. In this class, we will examine law as a social process -- law in action -- recognizing that "law" does not take place in a social vacuum. Law is not merely a set of abstract principles that are applied equally in similar kinds of cases: the social characteristics of the police, lawyers, offenders, victims, judges and other participants can matter. Therefore, we will study law as a variable, an activity that changes from case to case given the social characteristics of the parties involved.}, journal={TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology}, author={Westervelt, Saundra}, year={2010}, month={Apr.} }