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Material Alternatives to Legal Resolution 33 of Criminal Conflicts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Verner Goldschmidt
Verner Goldschmidt*
Affiliation:
Centre of Interdisciplinary Studies Copenhagen School of Economics and Business Administration
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Extract

This paper is mainly based on some empirical studies (1) which I have made of the ways in which agents of conflict resolution —formal as well as informal— behave under different social conditions. Of course empirical research does not exist in a value free vacuum. Pushing it to extremes, I do, spontaneously, prefer the attitudes behind the poem: “Rules, rules, if only they would disappear, the sun would again shine in our land” (2) to the following sayings: “One jurist is more powerful against Satan than a thousand unlearned men with their prayers” (3) and “The law is the foundation of a nation” (4). The ideas behind these words must be seen in their social context. The poem has been created in a society of the Gemeinschaft type while the sayings come from societies with the characteristics of Gesellschaft (5). I think that lawyers all over the world would agree with the ideas underlying the sayings, but I do not (6).

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
International Annals of Criminology , Volume 22 , Issue 1-2 , 1984 , pp. 75 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 International Society for Criminology

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References

Notes

(1) Goldschmidt, V.: The Greenland Criminal Code and its Sociological Background. Acta Sociologica, vol. 1, 1956, 217 pp. and Retlig Adfaerd. Meddelelser om Gronland (Law Enforcement. Reports on Greenland) vol. 90, No. 3, Copenhagen, 1974, and Repression eller Tolerance i Retshandhaevelsen (Repression or Tolerance in Law Enforcement), Acta Societatis Juridicae Lundensis, No. 24, Teckomatorp 1978, p. 175-195, and New Trends in Studies on Greenland Social Life. Folk Vol. 5. Copenhagen 1963, 113 pp. and The Decriminalization as a Resource Problem. Paper presented for the VIII World Congress of Sociology, Toronto 1974, and Fra uskreven til skreven kriminalret i Gronland (From Unwritten to Written Law in Greenland), Retfaerd i Gronland (Justice in Greenland), Arthus 1980, 116 pp.

(2) The poet Henrik Lund told me and my colleagues the poem in Greenland in 1948.

(3) Wigmore, J' H.: A panorama of the World's Legal Systems, Washington D.C., 1936, p. 548-549.

(4) The Jutland Legal Code. Preface. 1241. Inscription on the portal of the Copenhagen City Court.

(5) Tönnies, F.: Community and Association (Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft) translated and supplemented by Charles P. V. Loomis, London 1955, 67 pp., see Eugene Kamenka and Alice Erh-Soon Tay (ed.) Law and Social Control, London 1980, 8 pp.

(6) During a seminar in Messina in 1980 several American and European lawyers expressed such points of view.

(7) Podgorecki, A.: The Theory of Sociology of Law: Problem. Acta Societatis Juridicae Lundenses, No. 24, Teckomatorp, 1978, 143 pp.

(8) Podgorecki, A. op. cit. and Hydén, H.: Rättens samhälleliga funktioner. (The Social Functions of Law), Lund 1978.

(9) Nils Christie and Kjersti Ericsson are some of the representatives of the approach presented in my paper. For a more detailed description of the two see section III, paragraph 2 c of this paper.

(10) See e.g. Alper, B.S. and Nichols, L.T.: Beyond the Courtroom, USA, 1981.

(11) Bentzon, A.W. op. cit. and Galanter, M.: Justice in Many Rooms. Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law. No. 19, 1981, 1 pp.

(12) Christie, N.: Conflicts as Property. The British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 17, No. 1, January 1977, 1 pp.

(13) Aubert, V.: Competition and Dissensus: Two types of conflict and conflict resolution. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. VII No. 1, 1963, p. 26.

(14) Vilhelm Aubert has often emphasized this point of view.

(15) Based on a research report of September 6th 1950 made by The Juridic Expedition sent by the Danish Prime Minister to West Greenland 1948-49 (unpublished). The authors of the report were Agnete Weis Bentzon, Verner Goldschmidt and Per Lindegaard.

(16) Birket-Smith, K.: The Eskimos, London, 1936, p. 156, and Van den Steenhoven, G.: Garibou Eskimo Legal Concepts, Eskimo of the Canadian Arctic. Toronto 1968 (Ed. Victo F. Valentine and F.G. Vallee), p. 83.

(17) The Juridic Expedition op. cit. and Verner Goldschmidt: Repression and Tolerance op. cit.

(18) Repression and Tolerance op. cit. 2,3 pp.

(19) The Juridic Expedition op. cit.

(20) Information by members of his family given to me personally in 1971.

(21) The Greenland Criminal Code. The American Series of Foreign Penal Codes. No. 16, New York 1970.

(22) Goldschmidt, V.: Folk, op. cit. 120 p.

(23) Goldschmidt, V.: Retfaerd i Gronland (Justice in Greenland), 127 pp.

(24) The research results have been published in Goldschmidt, V.: Konflikt uden Vold (Conflict without Violence) op. cit.

(25) Konflikt uden Vold, op. cit.

(26) Jepsen, J.: Policing Labour Conflicts. Scandinavian Studies in Criminology. Vol. 7, Stavanger 1980, 177 pp.

(27) The Danish Penal Code of April 15th 1930.

(28) The example is based on documents from the local court.

(29) The information is based on material presented to a Committee on Police and Social Unrest appointed in 1981. I am a member of the committee.

(30) Reported to the committee op. cit. by the mediator Jorgen Jepsen.

(31) Reported by the mayor to the committee op.cit.

(32) Bentzon, A. W. op. cit.

(33) Galanter, M.: Legality and its Discontents: A Preliminary Assessment of Current Theories of Legalization and Delegalization. Blankenburg, E. K. et al. (ed.): Alternative Rechtsformen und Alternativen zum Recht, 11 pp.

(34) Galanter, M.: op. cit. p. 12.

(35) Galanter, M.: op. cit. p. 22.

(36) Abel, R.: Informal Alternatives to Courts as a Model of Legalizing Conflict. Paper (unpublished) presented at a Scandinavian criminological seminar in Stavern, Norway, 1980.

(37) Abel, R.: op. cit. p. 14.

(38) Bentzon, A.W.: op. cit. p. 1.

(39) Galtung, J.: Conflict as a Way of Life. Bulletin of Peace Proposals. Oslo 1970, Vol. 1, No. 2, p. 115.

(40) Aubert, V.: op. cit. and Eckhoff, T.: The Mediator, the Judge and the Administrator in Conflict Resolution. Blegvad, B.P. (ed.). Contributions to the Sociology of Law. Acta Sociologica. Copenhagen 1966. Vol. 10-Fasc. 1-2, 148 pp.

(41) Christie, N.: op. cit.

(42) Ericsson, K.: Alternativ konfliktlosning (Alternative Conflict Resolution), Kristiansand, Norway, 1982.