In this paper I note the growth of analyses of law that focus upon its ideological character and content, and I identify problems and difficulties manifest in the ideological analysis in recent critical and Marxist texts. The paper argues that work focusing upon the ideological character of law realizes significant advances over that produced by the more orthodox approaches within the sociology of law and jurisprudence employing normative analysis. It is possible to make ideological analysis more rigorous. The paper outlines the elements of a theory of and methodology for the ideological analysis of law.

Law occupies a critical place in a Marxist theory of society. Yet Marx and Engels did not provide a coherent and detailed discussion of law. Subsequent writers in the Marxist tradition have either developed simplistic versions of the unsustainable thesis that the capitalist class dominates the legal apparatus in a capitalist society, or they have virtually abandoned Marxism as a framework for analysis of the law. This paper examines leading texts of Marx and Engels and employs them to provide the outlines of a plausible Marxist theory of law that can embrace the rich complexity of legal activity in a modern capitalist society.

Parole was introduced in California, and used for over a decade, primarily to relieve governors of part of the burden of exercising clemency to reduce the excessive sentences of selected state prisoners. Later, when parole was additionally used to relieve prison crowding, processes were initiated that eventually led to the adoption of a rehabilitative justification for parole. We outline these events and their background and briefly consider their implications for the study of penal reforms.

This analysis of the juvenile court movement is critical of both functionalist and social movement interpretations. Following Meyer and Rowan (1977) and Hagan et al. (1979), I suggest that the juvenile court was not a substantive reform but served primarily to extend conventional means of child-control through the legitimizing vocabulary of Progressivism. Descriptive analysis of state statutes shows the derivative, ambiguous nature of the juvenile court as a legal phenomenon. Dynamic analysis of the diffusion of juvenile court acts shows that neither functional need nor social movement influence provides a convincing explanation for the rapid institutionalization of the court.

This paper examines the way in which a United States district court decision in Texas catalyzed state legislation in that state. The events leading from the decision to the enactment of the statute are chronicled. The paper also describes the processes of bargaining and cooperation among the major actors who used the decree to obtain the new legislation. In the conclusion, factors that facilitated the catalytic impact of the judicial decision are discussed.