The Promise of Interdisciplinary legal Science - Book Report/Review Example

? Law and Society Pain Powerlessness and the Promises of Interdisciplinary Legal Scholarship: An Idiosyncratic, Autobiographical Account of Conflict and Continuity Article Summary This document tries to bring out the pain and powerlessness that exist in law in relation to society. Sarat starts his discussion with a critical analysis of Spencer’s words that law is everywhere. On the basis of these words, it can be said that law is relative and depends purely on the circumstances of an action. Consequently, this entails that researches related to regulations in society are mostly driven by the problem at hand rather than theory. Scholars in this field are not in many cases interested in building up a permanent theory to handle the societal problems. Such scholars are fond of selecting a particular research problem due to their various interests in the subject (Sarat, 2000). For others, law reflects the organization of a social system, the struggles of which hardly change or regulate society. Article Analysis When Sarat tries to understand what is at stake when it comes to law and society, he considers Brooks W’s case. Brooks forced a lady to drive to a particular destination where he raped and killed her. On his first hearing, Brooks was found guilty of rape, kidnapping, murder, and robbery. However, on appealing, his death sentence and murder sentences were withdrawn. To challenge this decision, a retrial case was set, which Sarat attended with the aim of trying to discover the relationship between law and language. During this hearing, it was clearly seen how law can be modified through words to fit different situations (Sarat, 2000). All that matters in law is how well you can present your arguments and back them up with supportive evidences. According to Sarat (2000), the sociological studies of law made sense to him the way he knew it. Law is not always protective as we may think, but it oppresses the vulnerable people in society, since it can be termed as skewed privilege to the powerful. The words spoken by Spencer claiming that law is everywhere only refer to the poor, as the rich in most cases are able to get away with their mistakes. The basis of the sociological studies about law was to expose the irony behind the law regulations. Though law on paper may seem to be expressed in terms of equality and justice, the fact is it operates along a biased line. From a sociological perspective, law can be considered to be failing, weak, and irrelevant. On the other hand, Spencer’s words can be said to have a meaning of how law prescribes peoples’ actions. Sarat (2000) explains that it forms social relations and confines people to particular ways of living, hence people act as captives of their own lives. Law gives absolute power to the legal officials to interpret and reveal what is to be right or wrong. Unfortunately, the legal fraternity has been found to take matters into their own hands and modified the law to fit their interests. This means that to avoid getting oneself into trouble, one has to internalize the laws – the social scholars term this as colonization of the soul. In this regard, law cannot be separated from people’s aspiration, goals, and interests. Sarat (2000) firmly asserts that law and society form a science, since they are studied through experimentation and observation. To say that the social studies of law are built through arguments and narratives is to be controversial. The usage of language and narrative in law and society is due to the fact that stories are used in law to ascertain what has happened; the legal experts rely on narratives in order determine the actual experiences of the people. How to Turn a Beggar into a Bus Stop: Law, Traffic and the ‘Function of the Place’ Article Summary The use of the street space in the urban settings is important, since a street is considered as the traffic space used by the pedestrians. However, there has been a concern on the use of the street space by the urban poor in begging, which is considered as a way in which the beggars express their plight, and legal reforms that will help in reforming the laws. This article discusses public space and the behavior of the people that use the space, which the author terms as the traffic code, as well as the legal effects of this traffic code, which, according to the author, deflects arguments concerning the rights of the urban poor. The author argues that the introduction of the laws that limit the use of the public space by the urban poor is the denial of their basic rights to express their plight as the poor people. Article Analysis The author elaborates that a good street is the one where the pedestrians can move easily from one point to another without obstacles. The author’s argument focuses on the rights of the poor versus the law, which regulates the movement of people in public places. The regulation of beggars in the city of Vancouver was a violation of the rights of the poor, since these poor people were denied the right to communicate with other people, since their space and expression were limited. The case of Federated Anti-poverty Groups versus Vancouver, whose comments were submitted as an affidavit by Birch to the British Columbia Supreme Court, led to the limitation of beggars’ right to do begging in the city of Vancouver. The author points out that despite the rulings by different federal courts concerning the movement of the poor people within the urban centers, it is important to challenge the traffic code by trying to rethink the mobility of the city dwellers in a more inclusionary as well as in a more humane way, according to which the street space can be termed as the shared space which everyone can use to his or her benefit without compromising the other individuals using the same space (Blomley, 2007). This article elaborates on the different laws that have been passed concerning the use of the public space; it also discusses the different views of various individuals who advocate for the rights of the poor people whose only resource sustaining their lives is the public space. Blomley (2007) points out that in major towns like Vancouver and the province of Ontario several by-laws have been passed that regulate the begging actions of the poor people. The advocates of begging legislation argue that the laws that are passed by the courts help safeguard the rights of the general public to move freely within the city and be safe from the solicitation of people. They also believe the rules that govern street behavior are the foundation of freedom, which serves as the precondition to enhance the free flow of expression from the public. Opponents of begging legislation argue that the introduction of laws that limit the expression of the public, especially of the poor people, is a violation of the human rights, since the public space seems to be their only space for expressing their plight. They further argue that various regulation acts with much force on the poor people form a tyrannical practice of power. In Toronto, for example, the passing of the Ontario Safe Streets Act infringed their rights to freedom of expression as well as economic survival. In order to solve the issues that arise from the use of public space, it is important that the judicial courts take into account the needs of the general public and integrate it into a law that serves everyone equally. Welfare Law, Welfare Fraud and the Moral Regulation of the ‘Never Deserving’ Poor Article Summary The author in this article aims to explain the legal bounds of moral regulation and argues for a more materialized form of the concept that defines moral regulation. The author argues that moral regulation does not need to be taken as an alternative concept, but instead the sites and the various forms of control have different, not necessarily alternative, forms of study. The regulations do not capture the real concepts of control, since they are not all the laws that express the concept of social control. Poor women have been treated negatively over the years, and their welfare rights have been infringed, and the provision of social assistance by the state to the poor is viewed as a step that was enhanced by various distinguished scholars. Moral regulation helps to examine the various complexities that are present in the welfare policies, but the Canadian state has ignored the various social relations, and regulation scholarship has helped reinforce the separation of legal relations from other relations that exist in the law (Chunn & Gavigan, 2004). Article Analysis This article seeks to explain the disparities that the poor are exposed to, especially the single mothers who require welfare services for their support, since these women do not have the ability to earn a decent living. Chunn and Gavigan (2004) point out that welfare policy was in the past principled as regards the separation between the deserving individuals and the non-deserving people in the society. The deserving category of the poor people in the society have risked falling into the category of the undeserving individuals, because they were being monitored on a daily basis, and, therefore, sometimes judged for criminal activities. No individual is said to deserve any state assistance, but those who receive assistance from the state are termed as temporary beneficiaries who must be able to prove their abilities to work for the welfare. Welfare reforms that started in the early 1990’s have helped change the definitions as well as the application of the moral regulations achieved through the dismantling and streamlining of the Keynesian Social Security. As pointed out by Chunn and Gavigan (2004), welfare attack can be termed as the most evident form of assault of the single mothers, as the author points out that in the city of Ontario the attack on welfare included even the welfare benefits that the single mothers used to be given by the state. Anyone who was convicted of welfare fraud was completely cancelled from legibility category, and this meant that the convicted individual could not get the assistance. The reorganization of the welfare continues to be shifted, which results in the linking together of poverty, crime, and culpability of the poor people (or their vulnerability to it). The perfect example is the conviction of Kimberly Rogers of welfare fraud. The lady received loan from a student and welfare assistance. When she was sentenced to six months of house arrest, Ms. Rogers died from the overdose of the prescription drug – an occurrence which caused many questions concerning the government policies. In summary, law and society studies seek to point out the injustices that are caused by law in society. Scholars in this field are trying to bridge the gap that exists between legal law and moral standards. Law has made people to be captives, as they have to act along a predetermined manner (Sarat, 2000). They are made to favor a few people in society, and the poor are the most affected; for instance, if beggars are confined within a particular space, it means their rights of association are violated. Consequently, the laws should aim at protecting individuals as well as promoting justice and the common good. Though the legal officers are given the right of interpreting the law, they should do this within the moral standards. Finally, law and society scholars explain that the marginalization geared towards alienating particular kinds of people should be abolished, as it is null and void. Single mothers have had a problem with the welfare services over the past years due to the increase in the welfare fraud. Reforms in the judicial system will help solve these problems (Chunn and Gavigan, 2004). References Blomley, N. (2007). How to turn a beggar into a bus stop: Law, traffic and the ‘function of the place’. Urban Studies 44(9): 1697-1712. Chunn, D., & Gavigan, S. (2004). Welfare law, welfare fraud and the moral regulation of the ‘never deserving poor’. Social and Legal Studies, 13:219. Sarat, A. (2000). Pain powerlessness and the promises of interdisciplinary legal scholarship: An idiosyncratic, autobiographical account of conflict and continuity. Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice, 18:187-216. Read More