This paper reviews three bodies of research which relate to the severity of societal response to crime: studies of social complexity, of punitive reaction to high rates of deviance, and of the ability of the justice system to control criminal activity. We present a model aimed at integrating these findings and accounting for some of the inconsistent results among them. We contend that while normative diversity, on the whole, tends to lessen the severity of response, this tendency may be counteracted by an increased rate of deviance and a decreased certainty of punishment—also products of social complexity.

This report describes a study of the effects of a Scandinavian-style law concerning alcohol-impaired driving. The past two decades have seen the adoption throughout most of the developed world of drinking-and-driving laws based on principles originally developed in Norway and Sweden. The French law of July 12, 1978, was a part of this general development. Interrupted time-series analysis of French data on crash-related injuries and fatalities shows that the 1978 law had a notable deterrent effect, but that the effect was not permanent.

This study reanalyzes data collected by David Chambers on the enforcement of child support orders in Michigan. It finds that organizational factors interact with sanction factors to determine levels of general deterrence. Where the agency charged with enforcing child support orders, the Friend of the Court, is proactive and jail is a relatively common punishment for those who persist in not paying, overall collection rates are markedly higher than where neither or only one of these factors exist. The study also examines special deterrence and finds a special deterrent effect apparently associated with the experience of being jailed for failing to pay support. In the course of the investigation a number of contingencies important to deterrence theory are identified, and a behavioral response to threat—the avoidance response—is defined.

The practice of plea bargaining has been a subject of controversy in much recent literature. At least one legal philosopher, Kenneth Kipnis, has argued that this practice ought to be abolished on the ground that negotiated pleas are entered involuntarily. Wertheimer and Brunk have challenged Kipnis' claim that negotiated pleas are involuntary. I argue that each party to this controversy has failed to distinguish between two important questions: (1) are negotiated pleas involuntary in a sense that renders them legally invalid; and (2) are negotiated pleas involuntary in a sense that warrants the abolition of that practice as a matter of social policy? I believe that their failure to distinguish between these questions is partly responsible for the fact that their analyses of voluntariness are inappropriate to either of them. In showing how the analyses of these thinkers go wrong, I provide at least a partial account of the meaning of “involuntary” appropriate to the questions they conflate. Finally, I argue that the uses of “involuntary” in these questions, though established by practice, are nonetheless misleading, and I suggest alternative formulations of these questions that clarify the issues they present.

The paper identifies five presumptions of dispute theorizing: universality, ideological functionalism, settlement by courts, qualitative identity of the parties, and comparability. It is argued that these presumptions derive from or are related to the methodology of dispute theorizing, which is idealist either in the form of abstracted empiricism or logical deduction. Reasons for the sudden upsurge in dispute theorizing are discussed. Concluding, the authors evaluate attempts by dispute theorists to break away from the presumptions identified, and indicate some empirically limited but theoretically useful possibilities for futher work.

In the early and mid-1920's Soviet courts were overwhelmed with new criminal business, prompting Bolshevik leaders to transfer most cases of petty crime away from the courts either to administrative proceedings or to lay bodies (comrades' courts and village social courts). This article examines the Bolshevik experiment in decriminalization and diversion—its causes, its politics, and its consequences both for the courts and for the alternatives to them. The crisis of congestion in early Soviet courts resulted neither from a growth in actual criminal behavior nor from prosecution of new crimes devised by the Bolsheviks. It owed its origin to the elimination after the Revolution of various extrajudicial mechanisms used by the Tsars for handling infractions, thereby producing a criminalization of traditional misdeeds. The subsequent adoption by Soviet leaders of a policy of decriminalization followed careful study, and despite the turbulent times bore the mark of rational decision making. And the policy was implemented; a large number of cases were shifted first to administrative processing by police officials and then to lay tribunals, especially to the village social courts, which proved more viable than the comrades' courts which were established in factories. But the waves of diversion did not relieve court congestion, as in each instance new sorts of cases replaced those moved away. The experience tended to confirm the thesis that the amount of crime prosecuted in a society is a function of the capacity of its criminal justice institutions.

Discussion about slavery and law has been raised recently to a high level of abstraction, but important aspects of the relationship remain unexamined. Under what circumstances were masters held liable for the damage that resulted from the wrongs of slaves? The question of distributing the burdens of accidents is a matter of policy, and involves important questions of power and responsibility. But, within an historical context, the range of choices open to a society is neither infinite nor static. This study suggests that legal traditions, styles of reasoning, and, above all, social relationships and perceptions (including those between slaveholders and nonslaveholders) help unravel the policy choices Southerners made in the years before the Civil War.

Why do attorneys utilize social science experts in school desegregation cases? Although experts often testify for both parties in these cases, plaintiff lawyers are more likely than defense lawyers to call upon them. Plaintiff lawyers appear to have easier access to a network of scholars willing to testify. Moreover, plaintiff lawyers have a set of social theories and legal strategies that often requires the use of social science expertise. Although the testimony offered by social scientists is often not directly relevant to the legal issues in a trial, it is part of the attorney's attempt to educate or persuade the judge to a particular view of race relations and education.

This paper examines the discretionary judgments of the prosecutor during the screening of felony arrests. In particular, I emphasize the significance of the victim on the prosecutor's definition of serious crime and criminal activity. Descriptive accounts of felony screening illustrate how prosecutors rely on stereotyped characteristics to assess victim credibility.

Do defendants who plead guilty receive lighter sentences than those with similar charges and attributes who exercise their right to trial? The assertion that they do has long been at the heart of the literature describing and explaining the plea-bargaining process, though it has been questioned in some important work published recently. The existence of sentence differentials is particularly hard to document statistically, because a successfully operating policy of punishing those who go to trial will in fact minimize the number of cases in which the sanction for trial has to be imposed. Examination of data from three California counties, as well as consideration of various theoretical concerns, leads us to argue that sentence differentials are likely to characterize jurisdictions whose disposition patterns are based on inducing most defendants to plead guilty.

German prepaid legal insurance is growing both in terms of number of households insured and in terms of extending coverage to new legal areas. Fears for a litigation explosion, however, can be shown to be unfounded—just as are hopes that legal insurance would remove social inequalities of access to law. The use of legal insurance turns out to be much more limited than could have been expected. Major effects on financing lawsuits occurred only in defense against traffic fines and regulating traffic accidents. Litigation behavior as measured by indicators of litigiousness (such as risking a lawsuit with poor chance for success, resisting settlement, filing an appeal) does not seem to be affected by removing cost considerations. It appears that social costs determine inclination to litigate to a greater degree than do financial costs.

The USSR can survive without the rule of law which characterizes most western democracies, because the force of Soviet law lies in individuals, rather than codified regulations. The iuriskonsult (legal advisor), who personalizes legal authority, increases the stability of the system and provides tangible benefits for the economic and social order. Many Soviet citizens find solutions to their legal problems as a result of the iuriskonsult's assistance, and this convinces them of the justness of the Soviet system. Iuriskonsulty can increase the economic efficiency of an organization, provide financial gains for workers, and improve the quality of labor relations. The impact of the lawyer on his organization is determined by the latitude accorded him by his manager.

On the basis of data dealing with the processing of labor grievances by state institutions in Chile in the period of 1970-1972, the author argues that litigiousness—the propensity to pursue grievances—was growing during that time. This increased litigiousness may be traced to the overall process of rapid sociopolitical change, in particular the growing political awareness of certain sectors of wage earners. The Labor Inspectorate responded positively to increased demand for justice, and encouraged socially well-focused grievance behavior by providing more adequate remedies. The labor courts, in contrast, were insensitive to the process of change. They showed no interest in developing an institutional assertiveness, either favoring or impeding aggrieved workers filing suit. Developments in litigiousness and litigation rates are analyzed in the light of the macro-social process of change that took place at the time.

Diversion has emerged as one of the most popular reform tactics in the juvenile justice system. An analysis of a two-year diversion program for status offenders revealed significant conceptual and operational ambiguity. The notion of a progression of a delinquent career from status to criminal offenses was not supported. The utilization of community-based programs in place of the juvenile court resulted in agency competition for clients and lengthy treatment programs for status offenders. Finally, the impact of specialized treatment for status offenders on behavioral and attitudinal measures was not significant. It was concluded that diversion programs developed exclusively for status offenders may be predicated on faulty assumptions.

Although the possible effect of race on sentencing decisions is a much-studied question, even recent studies suffer from methodological problems. This paper attempts to correct these problems by using a large number of cases and a large number of offenses, by dividing the sentencing decision into two separate decisions, by using an appropriate scale to measure sentence severity, by including controls for relevant legal and extra-legal factors, and by using multivariate analysis. Our major findings are that race does not have a direct effect on sentence severity, but that blacks are more likely than whites to be incarcerated.