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12 Soc. Probs. 67 (1964-1965)
A Sociological Analysis of the Law of Vagrancy

handle is hein.journals/socprob12 and id is 69 raw text is: Sociological Theory and Social Action to which discussions can be oriented. It is also a means of illustrating the existence of parallels between the as- pirations of the investigator and those of the policy maker. On one hand, the policy-maker is a risk-taker who must operate on edu- cated guesses. He seldom has a rational and comprehensive means for relating policy to action, or of anticipating the field of forces which play upon him. An operationalized theory is a means for doing this. On the other hand, theory is a frame- work which lends meaning to the research role. Efforts on the part of the investigator to operationalize the experiment, to insure that experimen- tal conditions are met, and to measure its impact, are more easily entertained as important functions. Any intrusion on his part to maintain experimental conditions or train practitioners for the roles they play can be placed in context and judged as relevant or ir- relevant. Even the needs of the investi- gator to insure that the experiment might be replicated at some future date may not differ greatly from those of the action person who, for different reasons, likewise desires a systematic description of the steps involved. Such an accommodation of theory, research and action roles would have obvious value and operational implica- tions. It runs counter to the traditional expectations of pure science and ex- ceeds the aspirations of applied sci- ence. It suggests the need to weigh not only the consequences for both society and sociology of making such a change but of failing to make it. Sociology is still gathering data at arbitrarily selected points in the total society and as a result may be painting only a partial picture of that which ex- ists. Theoretically conceived research- action programs are one means of ex- panding the boundaries of that pic- ture. There is likely as much that is generalizable from the social process in action systems as in any other. A SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE LAW OF VAGRANCY WILLIAM J. CHAMBLISS University of Washington With the outstanding exception of Jerome Hall's analysis of theft' there has been a severe shortage of sociolog- ically relevant analyses of the relation- ship between particular laws and the social setting in which these laws emerge, are interpreted, and take form. For a more complete listing of most of the statutes dealt with in this report the reader is referred to Burn, The History of the Poor Laws. Citations of English statutes should be read as follows: 3 Ed. 1. c. 1. refers to the third act of Edward the first, chapter one, etc. 1 Hall, J., Theft, Law and Society, Bobbs- Merrill, 1939. See also, Alfred R. Linde- smith, Federal Law and Drug Addiction, Social Problems Vol. 7, No. 1, 1959, p. 48. The paucity of such studies is some- what surprising in view of widespread agreement that such studies are not only desirable but absolutely essential to the development of a mature soci- ology of law.2 A fruitful method of establishing the direction and pattern of this mutual influence is to syste- matically analyze particular legal cate- gories, to observe the changes which take place in the categories and to ex- 2 See, for example, Rose, A., Some Sug- gestions for Research in the Sociology of Law, Social Problems Vol. 9, No. 3, 1962, pp. 281-283, and Geis, G., Sociology, Criminology, and Criminal Law, Social Problems Vol. 7, No. 1, 1959, pp. 40-47.

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