336 Pages
by
Routledge
Law is a double-edged sword. It is not just an instrument for implementing social policy, social control, and social rights, but an instrument, in the hands of those with the motivation, power and economic resources to wield it, for undermining them. This topical volume presents seminal socio-legal essays encompassing a diverse range of issues, including criminal justice, tax avoidance and corporate finance, to fully explore the topics of crime, compliance and control.
Contents: Introduction. Part I: Opening Perspectives: False dichotomies in criminal justice research. Part II: Taking Law Seriously in Socio-Legal Research: Explaining Conviction: Pre-trial procedures and the construction of conviction; Convincing the court: the structure of legal proof; Arrest: the legal context of policing; A right to silence?. Part III: Legal Form, Legal Ideology, Legal Actors: Magistrates' courts and the ideology of justice; Criminal justice and the ideology of the rule of law; Law and capital: the role of legal form and legal actors. Part IV: Law, Class and Labelling: It's not what you do but the way that you do it: tax evasion, tax avoidance and the boundaries of deviance; Whiter than white collar crime: tax, fraud insurance and the management of stigma. Part V: From Regulator to Regulated: Creative Compliance: Law, policy and legal avoidance: can law effectively implement egalitarian policies?; International corporate finance and the challenge of creative compliance (with C. Whelan); Transnational transactions: legal work, cross-border commerce and global regulation; Looking for loopholes. Part VI: Law, Power and Control: Creative compliance and the defeat of legal control: the magic of the orphan subsidiary (with C. Whelan); The elusive spirit of the law: formalism and the struggle for legal control; When compliance is not the solution but the problem: from changes in law to changes in attitude. Appendix: further publications; Index.
Biography
Dr Doreen McBarnet is a Professorial Fellow in Socio-Legal Studies in the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, UK.
