This program is designed to promote student understanding of the contemporary and historical relationship between American society's social norms and values and its efforts to:
- define and ensure the rights and responsibilities of its members, and control its members informally and especially formally through legal institutions including all aspects of the criminal justice system;
- grasp the role of the American legal institutions both in shaping these norms and values and reflecting them as well as in legitimating and constraining the use of coercion and force in maintaining and creating social order; and
- to begin to understand the complex social, political, economic, and historical contexts within which the life chances of diverse groups within American society are enhanced or diminished as a result of their interactions with legal institutions including various institutions of informal and formal social control.
Law & Society Minor Requirements