The Availability of Law

Bibliographic Data

ID6089805
AuthorsSusan S Silbey (0000-0003-2500-3497, University of California, Los Angeles, corresponding author), Egon Bittner (Brandeis University, corresponding author)
Year1982
Volume4
Issue4
Pages399-434
Publication date1982-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLaw & Policy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0265-8240 • E-ISSN: 1467-9930
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9930.1982.tb00284.x
OpenAlexW1969812068
LanguageEN
Citations received25
References cited32

This article explores the practical skills that agents in the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office of Consumer Protection develop to accomplish their mandated objectives. In the situational structure and processes of discretionary decision making, we find a persistent surplus of enforcement capacity. Although the consumer protection law establishes a variety of sanctions and legal procedures to be used in enforcing the statute, agents frequently invoke infractions of other laws in the course of resolving consumer complaints. They have this flexibility only because laws, in general, are imperfectly enforced. This leaves scope in a particular situation for the invocation of a wide variety of potential violations of, for example, safety and building codes, zoning or license rules, and tax laws, all remotely if at all related to consumer protection. This article demonstrates the skill with which consumer protection officials exercise this discretion and argues that an adequate conception of the role of law ought to take account of the different ways in which law enforcement agents draw from this reservoir of un‐enforced law

Business · Consumer protection · Discretion · Economics · Enforcement · Flexibility (engineering · Law and economics · Law enforcement · License · Political science · Sanctions · Scope (computer science · Statute · Variety (cybernetics · Computer Science · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems · Regulation and Compliance Studies

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