Dear Student:
Greetings and welcome to a fascinating look into the lens of social science to
better understand law, justice, and society. My name is Gene Straughan and I am the course
instructor. My educational background is in political science, law, and criminal justice.
Along with this course I teach introduction to criminal justice, criminal procedure,
criminal law, comparative criminal justice systems, constitutional law, American national
government, and several other courses at Lewis-Clark State College. My research interests
focus on how public policy seeks to work out conflicts within the United States between a
dominant culture and various subcultures, probing the significance of the unwritten
character of the law and calibrating the weight to be assigned to societal values. I also
work closely with various agencies on projects dealing with juvenile delinquency, adult
corrections, organizational assessments, police-citizen review boards, and so on.
Underscoring my experiences is a keen interest in how and why the social scientific
approach provides a more thorough understanding of the complexities of human behavior.
What makes the study of social science so exciting is the ageless struggle to better
understand the conditions of human life and the opportunities for improving those
conditions. The social sciences—anthropology, economics, geography, history,
psychology, sociology, philosophy, and political science—attempt to make sense out of
the game of life. It is played by some five billion people, each having a variety of moves
with far reaching consequences. The players of the game come from diverse social,
economic, and political backgrounds. They are also made up of different races and divided
into males and females with certain desires and rules passed on to them through nature and
nurture. What makes the game interesting is that people are the players and the played, at
times moving themselves, watching as they make foolish choices and contrive sophisticated
solutions, but at other times being moved and manipulated by forces seemingly beyond their
control. Even the ultimate goal of the game of life is uncertain. It is not entirely clear
whether a person looses if he or she commits suicide and wins if he or she earns a million
dollars? There are even questions about whether people are playing the game of their own
free will or their actions are merely predetermined by another source. In any event, the
interdisciplinary framework of the social sciences attempts to answer the empirical
question of how the game of life works and the normative question of how the game of life
ought to work.
One of the more intriguing areas of social scientific study is the role of law and justice
within society. For lawyers, the law is what they practice and what the government
requires of the citizens. But the law constitutes much more. According to social scientist
Max Weber, laws are evolving norms which are directly guaranteed by legal coercion. Any
behavior deviating from social norms can draw a criminal and/or civil sanction imposed by
the organized forces of government. Law may speak with the authority of the state, but its
meaning and content are as malleable as the cultural, political, and economic forces of
society. As such the legal system is neither an altruistic nor egotistic process but a
human enterprise—one with moral spirit, selfishness, and even dangerous arrogance.
Indeed the human capacity for justice makes law possible, but the human inclination to
injustice makes law necessary. A prime example is the historical struggle of the American
legal system to reconcile the competing interests of a democratic society. What was once a
society dominated by white, Protestant, property-owning males has become more open to and
respectful of others. Indeed questions about the proper role of the legal system are
evolving ones. What societal values (order, morality, property, liberty, and equality) is
the state suppose to protect? How is the state suppose to go about punishing violators?
Other questions are equally compelling. What can be done to ameliorate the lingering
effects of unequal treatment of women, minorities, and the poor? How can government
control crime without sacrificing civil liberties? There are no easy answers to the
conflicts the law is expected to resolve. Finding a workable solution to these societal
problems are one of the primary concerns of the various disciplines making-up the social
sciences.
No field of study is more important to human beings than the social sciences. To
understand society is to learn not only the conditions that shape human life, but also the
opportunities open to people for improving their human conditions. A knowledge of society
and human behavior is as important as learning about mathematics, physics, chemistry,
medicine, and law. The benefits from learning how to build automobiles, perform surgeries,
or make computers are hollow unless people can be part of a society where human beings
live happy, meaningful, and satisfying lives. Albert Einstein echoed these sentiments best
when he observed that "politics is more difficult than physics and the world is more
likely to die from bad politics than from bad physics." At few times has there been a
greater challenge to learn about the basic conditions of human behavior. Students should
be willing to shed their prejudices and think critically about the compelling cultural,
economic, and political problems confronting society today. But with challenges comes
rewards for students who pay more attention to and are more informed about the game of
life. A richer appreciation of the social sciences can only lead students to become more
committed to keeping society responsive to the people and problems of the twenty-first
century. Remember that nothing is graven in stone. There are no final lessons to
understanding the conditions of human life and the opportunities for improving those
conditions.
Sincerely yours,
Gene T. Straughan, Ph.D., Social Science/Justice Studies Professor
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