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"Preface This text on the study of law and society is more than a look at how law controls or influences our society. It is designed to open the students' eyes to the fascinating topics involving law and society. Our approach is to present a text that may be used in a one-semester course on law and society or a sociology of law course. While each chapter builds on the previous chapters, the text is designed so that the chapters may be studied in a different order, depending on the design of the course. The text is written in a manner that may be understood by college students and thus enable instructors to focus on selected issues and topics during class time. Too often in the law and society area, textbooks can be understood only by instructors, and thus valuable class time must be used to explain the meaning of the concepts covered in the text. To overcome this problem, we followed the example of Ernest Hemingway and used familiar, concrete words and short sentences whenever possible. This approach should allow valuable class time to be used to encourage critical thinking on the part of the students. A few acknowledgments are appropriate: Carolyn Spence, our editor, for her encouragement and guidance; and our colleagues at Washburn University, Professors Ted Heim, Michael Birzer, and of course the department chair, Gary Bayens. A hug of appreciation to Prudy Taylor Board, the project editor at Taylor & Francis, and Doug Burke, the copy editor, for an admirable job in producing a text from the manuscript. "
List of contents
An Overview of Law and Society. Legal Systems. Social Research Methods. Legal Structures. Social Control. Lawmaking as a Form of Social Control. Dispute Resolution. Social Change and Law. Lawyers. Private Life and the Law. Crime and Justice Issues. Labor Issues and the Law. Index.
About the author
Harrison Watts, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Criminal Justice and Legal Studies Department at Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas. Harrison’s research interests are in legal issues surrounding criminal law. He is the author of numerous book chapters, journal articles, and instructors’ resource manuals to accompany textbooks.
Cliff Roberson LLM, Ph.D., is an emeritus professor of criminal justice at Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas. Previously he served for four years as the editor in chief of the Professional Issues in Criminal Justice Journal. In 2009, a research study conducted by a group of professors from Sam Houston State University determined that Cliff Roberson was the leading criminal justice author in the United States based on his publications and their relevance to the profession [See Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol. 6, Issue 1, 2009]. He has authored or co-authored over 50 books and texts on legal subjects.
