ABSTRACT
The consensus model incorporates certain features; (i) society is a relatively persistent stable structure; (ii) society shows a high degree of integration; (iii) the social structure is based on a relative consensus of values, and different positions within it are functionally ascribed; (iv) legal regulation is functionally the most efficient mode of management in modern society. The law may embody coercion, but law reflects the collective will of the people. There is a basic agreement on what is right and wrong in any given society, and formal law is the embodiment of this underlying collective agreement. The law serves all people equally, under the ideology of the rule of law the legal framework is a coherent and consistent body of principles and rules which neither serves nor presses the interests of any particular group of people. Those who violate the law represent some form of subgroup, their behaviour stems from some form of deviant or pathological conception. The normal position for individuals in the society is to agree with the definitions of right and wrong, and the small group who violate the law in this way evidence a maladjustment, or a pathology, or a distinguishing feature which makes them different from the law abiding majority. Society is relatively well integrated, and the consensus model may well claim that law comes out of the customs or the mutually agreed, shared ways for conducting social interaction. It is unusual to find the consensus perspective explicitly stated within criminological writings, but a great deal of what was called traditional criminology simply seems to assume consensus. Much of the work which went under the name of traditional criminology may be seen as deeply imbued with this consensus pre-supposition. It equates modern western society as a liberal democratic society where the legal system, and structure of crime control is based upon the assumption that laws and their enforcement represent what the people want, it is a reflection of their collective will(s).
