Socio-Legal Studies Article Review: Law and Society

This report provides a comprehensive review of three articles within the field of socio-legal studies, examining the intricate relationship between law and society. The first article focuses on the role of prisoner litigation in addressing the human rights issue of solitary confinement in Canada, exploring arguments for prisoner abolitionist ethics and the socio-legal methods employed. The second article delves into the historical treatment of Black people in Canada and how it was significantly influenced by the laws of the time. The third article highlights the importance of socio-legal methods in understanding how law shapes social policy and influences social events. The report analyzes the authors' arguments, socio-legal methods of inquiry, and the evidence presented to illustrate the connections between law and society, offering insights into how legal frameworks impact social structures and individual rights. The report also discusses the revelations made by the articles on the relationship between law and society, including the impact of legal frameworks on social structures, individual rights, and social policy.

Running Head: SOCIO-LEGAL STUDIES ARTICLE REVIEW
Socio-Legal Studies Article Review
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
Socio-legal studies have an important role to play in showcasing the important
relationship that exists between law and study, especially the manner in which law can be seen to
influence social policy and direct social events, giving society its much needed structure and
balance. This report reviews three well known articles on socio-legal study and research and
critically analyzes each and every one of them to assess the contribution that the articles make to
the broader spectrum of socio-legal research by focusing specially on author arguments, socio-
legal methods of enquiry used and the evidence produced to show the link between law and
society.
Article 1
Parkes, D. (2017). Solitary Confinement, Prisoner Litigation, and the Possibility of a Prison
Abolitionist Lawyering Ethic.Canadian Journal of Law & Society/La Revue Canadienne
Droit et Société, 32(2), 165-185
Topic of the Article
The topic of the article is the role that litigation can play when it comes to ending the
human rights issue of solitary confinement in the country of Canada. The article also focuses on
the relationship that is shared between anti carceral movements in societies around the world and
prisoner rights litigation.
Argument of the Author

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The author examines the widespread predominance of solitary confinement as evident in
Canada, both in the country’s federal prisons as well as in the territorial and provincial jails.
Secondly, the author reviews present day litigation that aims at ending solitary confinement for
prisoners, as practiced in both the USA and Canada. Thirdly, the challenges and possibilities of
prisoner rights litigation are considered from a broader carceral state perspective. Finally,
elements of prisoner abolitionist lawyer ethics are identified and examples are given, of anti
carceral legal efforts. Through all these investigations and enquiries, what the author seeks to
argue or establish is that litigation can play a largely positive role in bringing about an end to
solitary confinement for prisoners in Canada, which is a human rights issue at the moment. The
author vehemently believes the prisoner abolitionist framework as studied and used in several
parts of the United States of America, is one that can prove to be exceedingly useful for
promoting or at the very least ensuring human rights for prisoners in Canada, such as by setting
them free from unjust prison terms like solitary confinement.
Socio-Legal Methods Used
The author researches on the topic of the role of prisoner litigation and its role in ending
solitary confinement for prisoners at work by extensively reviewing legal literature on prisoner
litigation in Canada and in the United States. It studies all the prisoner laws and legal practices
that are currently being implemented to keep or protect prisoners from being confined in jail
cells indefinitely and in complete isolation. Advocacy and activism methods used by legal
scholars and practitioners in the USA and Canada to end solitary confinement for prisoners are
also reviewed and analyzed extensively by the author especially when it comes to identifying and
giving examples of prisoner abolitionist lawyer ethics. All the laws, advocacy and activism
methods are studied and interpreted by the author as objectively as possible to analyze the role

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that litigation could play, that is, most largely, a positive role, when it comes to ending unjust
prison conditions like solitary confinement for several of the people facing jail term in Canada.
Evidence Used by the Author to Support Critical Arguments
The author points to the efforts that have been made in the USA and Canada, to
implement prisoner litigation and alludes to how well know lawyers and legal practitioner and
even legal scholars have successfully encouraged lawyers to be critical of the negative aspects of
prisoner litigation. The author argues that this in turn has led to the creation of a prisoner
abolitionist framework, which the author suggests, serves as evidence of the fact that prisoner
litigation can be used to successfully terminate solitary confinement of prisoners at some point.
The prisoner abolitionist framework is, in the opinion of the author, the legal framework that
holds the key to ending solitary confinement of prisoners in Canada. Such a legal framework has
the human rights of prisoners as it focuses and seeks to help them rather than penalize them for
the negative things that they have done. This does not mean that the prisoner abolitionist
framework turns a deaf ear or a blind eye to the wrongdoings of the prisoners. What it implies, is
that it aims on securing the human rights of prisoners and ensuring that they are given dignity
and are made to carry out the terms of their punishment under humane rather than unjust
conditions.
Revelations about the Relationship between Law and Society in Articles 2 and 3
Revelations about Law and Society in Article 2
Walker, B. (Ed.). (2012). The African Canadian Legal Odyssey: Historical Essays. University
of Toronto Press.

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The revelations that are made by the author in this chapter clearly indicate that the
treatment and perception of black people in Canada, over the ages, and especially during the
slavery and post slavery eras was influenced a great deal by the legislations that were put in
place with regard to their rights, protection and even oppression. If the blacks in Canadian
society were ever treated with dignity, it was because Canadian law gave blacks certain rights
and freedoms to enjoy. If the blacks were treated cruelly by their white counterparts in Canada, it
was because Canadian law very silently supported the circumstances or conditions in which
white supremacist behavior was able to grow, develop and even flourish. Thus the social status
of blacks in Canada is linked directly to the law of the land. The revelations thus made by the
article through his discussions in the article are quite interesting to note. What seems evident to
the reader upon going through this piece, is that compassion for the black people in Canada and
the decision to accord them dignity is something that came about in society only because people
felt compelled to follow the law and not disobey it. In other words, Canadian society was
coerced into giving black people the dignity that was rightfully due to them as if they continued
to ill treat them at a time when the law was not supportive on the behalf of black people, they
could be tried under the new anti slave laws of the country and face imprisonment if necessary.
Yet at the same, since the law of the land was supportive of the circumstances in which racist or
white supremacist behavior was allowed to flourish, it seemed normal to the white people in
Canada to be condescending in their view towards the blacks. What can be concluded from the
very least by what the author has to say is that Canadians were law abiding and did not intend on
violating legislation even though many of them want to treat black people with disdain. What can
also be concluded is that primarily due to the support and dignity accorded to them by law,
several black people in Canada were given the protection and status that they deserved.

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Revelations Made about the Relationship in Law and Society in Article 3
Vago, S. (2015). Law and society. Routledge.
When it comes to revealing a number of important insights about the relation between
law and society, what this article manages to do points to the effectiveness of the different types
of socio-legal methods that are used by social researchers to conduct a study on the role and
influence of law in society as evidence of the fact that social researchers have a crucial role to
play in when it comes to contributing to an understanding of, and influencing social policy. The
author also reviews a wide range of socio-legal literature to demonstrate evidence of the fact that
social research and the study of law are those that are linked quite closely to each other. What is
highlighted in the process is the crucial significance of the research methods that are used by
sociologists to study the way law can influence events in society. The author shows that the
soundness of the socio-legal methods used by sociologists such as survey methods, experimental
methods and observation methods are those that go a long way in showcasing the relationship
between law practice and social policy and shows how sociologists end up influencing social
policy in doing so. A major takeaway from this article is that if one has to successfully
understand society and its mechanisms, one has to essentially understand all the laws that have
been put in place to regulate society in the first place. It is only by engaging in a detailed study of
the law of the land and social law in particular, can a researcher truly understand the various
workings of that society, and the positive and negative influences or aspects prevalent in this
society. The survey methods that are used by social researchers to carry out extensive studies on
the legal frameworks prevalent in society, provide such researchers with an overview of what the
laws pertaining to that particular society entail, and what rules and regulations the social citizens
are supposed to abide by, if they are to be considered harmonious and positive for the society in

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which they live. Those who do not abide by such rules and regulations invariably become
branded as anti-social elements and have a negative connotation about them. It is therefore
imperative for social researchers to carry out an objective study of social laws and the legal
framework of a country and of a specific society before getting into an in-depth study or
understanding of its various dimensions, people, customers, traditions etc.

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References
Parkes, D. (2017). Solitary Confinement, Prisoner Litigation, and the Possibility of a Prison
Abolitionist Lawyering Ethic.Canadian Journal of Law & Society/La Revue Canadienne
Droit et Société, 32(2), 165-185
Vago, S. (2015). Law and society. Routledge.
Walker, B. (Ed.). (2012). The African Canadian Legal Odyssey: Historical Essays. University of
Toronto Press.