On the Sociology of Criminal Law

This paper relates the revival of interest in the sociology of law, and in particular criminal law, to recent changes of perspective in the field of criminology. It considers the debate between conflict and consensus theorists over the nature of the criminal law and argues that efforts to settle the dispute in favor of one model or the other are somewhat misdirected. An attempt is made to reconcile the two viewpoints and to suggest how remaining points of disagreement can be used to stimulate more productive research.