INTRO to SOCIOLOGY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

INTRO to SOCIOLOGY - Essay Example Such perspectives may be thought of as certain models of social reality. Indeed, each theoretical perspective offers general postulates about the way society works, and for this purpose tries to correspondingly interpret numerous facts of a societys functioning and development. As with other models which human beings employ for understanding the world, like in science, philosophy, and in our everyday goings-on, sociological perspectives construct models with the aim to uncover the meaning of what we regularly witness around us. However, particular models often tend to highlight some specific characteristics of the complex social network of interdependencies, and thus turn out to accentuate different elements of a societys structure and functioning. Some perspectives even proclaim the refusal to accept the indisputable universal validity of offered perspectives as such. In general, while such narrow focuses of sociological perspectives may be quite warranted if we consider that they h elp to concentrate the research on one problem or a set of closely-related problems for their proper clarification, there is a flip side of a coin as hardly any concrete theoretical sociological perspective may be righteously considered to be the best one. The reason for this is not only in the fact that conscious contraction of research space to one particular perspective makes the investigation inherently limited. After all, this limitation can be mitigated by addressing many alternative perspectives which in combination may produce a more coherent picture of social phenomena. The more subtle problem is rather in the limitations of sociological perspectives due to their mostly theoretical background which, if due to some reason it lags behind the actual social tendencies, may hinder productive efforts to build the most adequate model of social reality. Still, this problem seems to be inevitable in our dynamic social environment with its unprecedented level of change in many sphere s of our life. Nevertheless, this should not discourage us from attempts to achieve the proper level of understanding of the roots and hidden driving forces behind existing social problems with the help of sociological perspectives. Rather, with the above considerations in mind we should be able to properly see when different sociological perspectives can be effectively employed, and which strong and weak points each of them contains. For this purpose, let us overview the so-called conflict and symbolic interactionist sociological perspectives, and identify a social problem which can be analysed with the help of those perspectives. Theorists of the conflict perspective are interested in the macro level of society and see it not as a solidary formation but as a battle-field for power struggles. Under this view, people are not really co-operating for social benefits, but instead are advancing their particular interests at the expense of other people. The notion of power plays a major role here, and can be defined as the ability of a person, or a group of persons, to fulfil their own will regardless of the existing disagreement of other people who are involved in their actions. Marx is a famous conflict theorist who viewed the conflict between classes as

Law of Criminal Evidence Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Law of Criminal Evidence - Essay Example This right is based on the Latin maxim nemo tenetur se ipsum accusare (no man is bound to accuse himself’). This principle is found, explicitly or by convention, in many of the worlds legal systems including England and wales. (Murphy, P Murphy) Criminal justice and Public Order,1994, section 38, provides that no conviction shall be based wholly on silence of the accused. Furthermore, though not explicitly found in Europpean Convention of Human Rights, (Dennis, I H ,2002) still in the rulings of Europan Court of Human Right, right ot keep silence is maintained. ( Murray v. UK. 1996) It is therefore, found that Imtiaz’s silence during pre-trial period is based on his legal right and will not esteblish any offence against him. For this purpose, the prosecution can not equate his silence to his confession in a court of law. In order to esteblish any guilt, prosecution shall have to maintain his case beyond admission during custody and the case should be suported by the evi dence. To keep silence in pre-trail inquiry by police is an esteblished right of the accused. He may maintain his position even when there is no advice by his solisitor or his solicitor advices against silence. It is found in this case that the accused Imtiaz had kept silence on advice of his solisitor and he also mentioned the same in his statement. However, he did not mention any reason for the same. Now, would there be a change in situation and legal consequences on the ground that accused had given any reason for solicitor’s advice? To be very simple, it must be seen in view of accused’s right. Accused is not bound by the advice of his solicitor as in the case of co-accused, Shannan, who refused to have a solicitor altogather and gave her statement. Solicitor is supposed to guide you as per law and no advice against the law of the land is expected from a legal counsel. In this case, too, the advice by Imtiaz’s solicitor is based on