Black (1976) offers five propositions about stratification, morphology, culture, organization, and social control to explain variations across time and space in quantity of law. Black argues that law is used as a tool of formal social control in four distinct ways: penal, which enforces with punishment; compensatory, initiative taken by the victim; therapeutic, with the goal of therapy and treatment; and conciliatory, or social harmony. Black argues that conflict may occur wherever there is social life and that conflict and the handling of it can be explained sociologically. Black defines law as government social control and argues that when there is no law, there is only nonlegal social control, or essentially anarchy. Black argues that where there is more law, there is less nonlegal social control and vice versa (Black, 1976).
Black argues is that everything behaves, living or nonliving including law, and that law is quantitative and can be measured more or less. Black argues that law systematically varies with behavior of other aspects of social life. These behaviors can be defined by five variables, or his five propositions: stratification, morphology, culture, organization, and social control. His core arguments are explained using each variable (Browning, 2015). First, Black argues that law varies directly stratification, or the more …show more content…
According to Black, vertical location refers to rank, and is especially important because vertical distance plays an important role on the style of law and the greater the distance a poor offender from a wealthy victim, the more likely penal style law will be invoked, compared to a wealthy offender versus a poor offender where the likelihood of compensatory, therapeutic, or conciliatory styles of law would be invoked (Browning,