This article reports on the first quantitative perceptual deterrence study of corporate (rather than individual) deterrence. The study is based on interviews with 410 chief executives of small organizations and their officially recorded compliance with regulatory standards. We find partial support for the certainty of detection as a predictor of both self-reported and officially recorded compliance but no support for the certainty or severity of sanctioning. The narrow range of sanctions available in the particular regulatory domain studied (regulation of nursing home quality) has enabled a fuller specification than was possible in previous studies of an expected utility model for all available sanctions. Managers' expected corporate disutility from all sanctions fails to explain compliance. Deterrence does not work significantly more effectively for chief executives (a) of for-profit versus nonprofit organizations, (b) who are owners compared with those who are not owners, (c) who say they think about sanctions more (sanction salience), (d) who may better fit the rational choice model in that they are low on emotionality, (e) who have a weaker belief in the law. Nor is deterrence more effective when compliance costs are low.

Apparently naive, but in fact not, is the question: What do lawyers do? Many scholars assume the central role of the lawyer is that of the advocate, but among lawyers working in law firms advocacy consumes little of their time. Similarly, the term lawyer provides hardly any meaning in itself. The research presented here is based on a participant-observation study of a corporate law firm. The central thesis proposed, in the light of case studies of the selling of shopping mall and the arranging of a bank loan, is that business lawyers are engaged in managing uncertainty for both their clients and themselves. Managing uncertainty is accomplished through interaction rather than appeals to the law.

Criminal justice systems have been described as fragmented and decentralized “nonsystems,” but sudden changes in the environments of criminal justice organizations may affect the loose coupling that normally characterizes such agencies. Court orders against county jails create pressures to tighten the loose coupling among local organizational subsystems: the jail, law enforcement, courts, probation, and county government. Using interviews with key officials, court documents, and other archival data, we examined changes in interorganizational relations in three California counties under court orders to reform local jails. While court orders eventually resulted in tighter coupling of the subsystems and more proactive interagency responses, the more reactive mode of response characteristic of loosely coupled subsystems initially led to increased interagency conflict. Adaptations were influenced by the legal, political, and organizational environments of each jurisdiction.

Donald Black's theory of law states that the quantity of law can be explained in terms of stratification, morphology, culture, organization, and social control. Empirical tests of this theory have produced disparate findings. For the most part, previous tests have focused on criminal law and on the use of law to deal with personal problems. In the present study, survey data are used to test the effect of stratification, morphology, culture, organization, and social control on the willingness of people to mobilize law in response to various neighborhood problems. The only strong and consistent finding is that other social control is positively associated with mobilization of law while Black's theory predicts a negative association. We suggest a distinction between societal and personal social control to explain the pattern of results.

Concerns about the treatment of rape victims and attrition in rape cases prompted a nationwide movement to reform state rape laws. In this study we evaluate the impact of rape law reforms on reports of rape and the processing of rape cases in six urban jurisdictions—Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Houston, and Washington, D.C. Our results strongly suggest that the ability of rape reform legislation to affect case outcomes is limited. Time-series analyses revealed that predicted results were found in only one of the six jurisdictions, and there the results were limited.

Empirical research demonstrates that jurors have difficulty understanding and following traditional instructions about the law. The social science literature recommends several procedural reforms, including giving important instructions at the start of the trial and providing jurors with written instructions. This article examines changes in the law following the publication of this social science research, comparing courts, legislatures and rule-making commissions. Analysis reveals that although all three institutions are dominated by lawyers, they have acted differently. Commissions have made substantial changes in the law consistent with the recommendations of social scientists, legislatures have made few changes, and courts have changed case law in the opposite direction, suggesting support for a theory of institutional context.