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The Two Faces of Law and Inequality: From Critique to the Promise of Situated, Pragmatic Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Carroll Seron
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Abstract

Over the course of my career, I have navigated a research agenda that moves between scholarly and policy-oriented research. Building on this experience, I argue that it is time for law and society scholars to take seriously a commitment to engaged scholarship that speaks to a wider audience of stakeholders and policymakers. Three themes frame my proposal to get back in the game of advocacy and policy. First, I consider why we need to rekindle this commitment at this historical moment: inequalities in wealth, income, and social mobility and the rise of mass incarceration and its collateral consequences diminish the foundation required for effective democratic governance to thrive. Second, what our scholarship has to say is key to the framing of pragmatic policy: law and society's focus on law in action and the culture of law are key to understanding the ways in which most policies tend to deliver unintended consequences. Finally, we need to consider how to go about the next step to make our work visible to a wider audience of stakeholders?

Type
Commentary
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 9 - 33
Copyright
© 2016 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

Thank you for your time and for the privilege of sharing these thoughts with you.

Many colleagues read earlier versions of this talk. Kitty Calavita, Valerie Jenness, Bryant Garth, Frank Munger, and Susan Silbey read and commented on multiple drafts; I thank each of you for your comments here and support over many years. Nick Branic, Catherine Fisk, Charis Kubrin, Sandra Levitsky, Nancy Mullane, Joyce Plotnikoff, Bryan Sykes, and Anjuli Verma also provided invaluable suggestions; my sincere thanks to each of you. I thank Sarah Bach for her careful research assistance and Dani McClellan for her always careful editing. Over many years, I have come to appreciate the incredible generosity among law and society scholars. In writing this talk, I have been made aware of how much I have learned from our vibrant criminology, law and society community at UC Irvine; thank you for all the ways you have stimulated my thinking in unanticipated directions. As President, one gets a close up view of what goes on behind the scenes at the Executive Office; Susan Olson and her team, Kris Monty, Megan Crowley and Heather Haley work tirelessly to make LSA what it is. Thank you for your support during my term as President.

References

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