Functionalist View Of The Law Making Process

Functionalists believe that society is based on a value consensus into which society socialises its members, which enables to cooperate harmoniously and meet society’s needs and goals.

Sociologists for centuries have debated the structure by which society evolves. Theories are tested to explain the changes by which society operates. Structural functionalism and conflict theory are the main viewpoints sociologists use to evaluate the changes in the habits of society. Mass incarceration is an example of social phenomenon. Mass incarceration can be viewed as a structural functionalism or a conflict theory. I believe the influences that have created today’s society are dependent on the view of the individual and decisions and actions they take.

Defining law can be difficult to do since its definition varies among various people. Many people see law as standards for human behavior that reflect the deepest values and morals of the society. Others see law as a game which acts as a set of guidelines for settling disagreements in a nonviolent way. From a sociologist’s perspective law is viewed as a behavioral system with the two aspects of roles/hierarchy and rules/discretion. Not only is law thought of as a behavioral system from a sociologist’s perspective but also as an institution which is a set of directions for doing things. When laws have been disobeyed by a member of society a form of punishment will be determined and it is not always effective. Everyone has their own views on law and punishment which is why I want to look at what theorists Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx view as the role and function of law and punishment. Before I can show the weaknesses, similarities and differences between each of their views I will give an overview of their thoughts on the role and function of law and punishment.

As societies expanded due to the economic demands posed by the Industrial Revolution, Durkheim said that the moral ties which bounded society together were weakened. Therefore, as society became more complex, a mechanism was engineered to effectively regulate these relationships and the result was the legal system[5]. The codification of moral behaviour, through laws, created guide-lines for large-scale societies. The foundation of these boundaries is in effect a function of crime and deviance, because without crime and deviance, on what basis would these laws be drafted upon?

Functionalism was founded by Emile Durkheim, who continuously question norms and how society works. Functionalism is based on how society conformed to the daily functions of everyday activity. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, there are boundaries that are strict between morals and social. Functionalism focus on the natural way society works, it doesn’t try to see how society will work if changed. Functionalism in a society is just one big circle, everyone contributes to one another to keep it going.

Overall, in the process of understanding the relation between social order and the law, the consensus provides a clearer and more radical view. It shows society as what it really is. It presents society as a united force respecting and following the norms as to

Moreover, Societies are held together by both consensus with values and coercion. The functionalist view is that the balance of harmony among the society is held up by societal institutions. For example, schools, church and family are seen as the most significant foundation for an adequately functional society.

Laws are the foundation of our society, they keep citizens safe and preserve our individual freedoms. Before a law is enacted it must start out as a bill. Each bill has an extensive process it must go through to become a law of the United States of America. This process of approval ensures that those three different parts of government agree on the bill before it becomes a law. In order to become law, a bill needs to be approved by the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the President of the United States. The law-making process, or Legislative process, can be broken into two basic steps, proposition and approval. These steps are the traditional and basic steps. As time went on, these steps have been altered and changed. A bill

     In his book on ?The Behavior of Law? Donald Black attempts to describe and explain the conduct of law as a social phenomenon. His theory of law does not consider the purpose, value, impact of law, neither proposes any kind of solutions, guidance or judgment; it plainly ponders on the behavior of law. The author grounds his theory purely on sociology and excludes the psychology of the individual from his assumptions on the behavior of law (Black 7). The theory of law comes to the same outcome as other theories scrutinizing the legal environment, such as deprivation theory or criminal theory; however, the former concentrates on the patterns of behavior of law, not involving the

The foundation to the functionalist perspective is that everything occurs for a reason. It is necessary for a society to have rules and laws to abide by, society lives in a consensus. It is important to understand the need for there to be social memebers whom do not conform to society; in this case prostitutes. Since prostitution is against the law in the United States except for in Nevada then prostitution helps in the validation of law enforcement personnel. Since there are social actors not abiding the law there is a need for the police and sheriff’s departments to control the criminals. For a society to function there are rules and rule breakers. There can’t be one without the other.

Functionalism is a consensus perspective, whereby society is based on shared values and norms into which members are socialised. For functionalists, society is seen as a system of social institutions such as the economy, religion and the family all of which perform socialisation functions.

Social conflict theory is the only one out of the vast number of criminology theories that deals directly with this problem. From out of it’s Marxist roots arose a theory which challenges the way in which today’s society views it’s legal system and the implications it has on it’s working class citizens. The nature and purpose of social conflict theories is to examine the social controls made by the ruling class and imposed on the rest of society.

Initially, laws are difficult to design because lawmakers can’t think of every possibility, every scenario, and every obstacle that may present itself in the democracy. Despite these difficulties, laws keep society together and provide unity for the citizens. Advantages for creating laws, include, but are not limited to, providing direction for the collection of taxes, declaring clear expectations for compliance and punishment of citizens and elimination of chaos.

Functionalist theory is one of the major theoretical perspectives in sociology. It can be argued that the functionalist theory has made a significant contribution to the study of society. It originates from the work of Emile Durkheim who suggests that social order is possible and society remains stable due to the functioning of several institutions. Everything has a specific function in society and society will always function in harmony. The main institutions studied by functionalism are the family, the education system, religion and crime and deviance.

Functionalism is one of the major theoretical perspectives in sociology which explains how social order is possible or how society remains relatively stable.