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Since its emergence as a coherent field of study a half century ago, legal socialization has moved to the forefront of conversations about legal reform across multiple fields. Amidst all this work, however, there is surprisingly little scholarship on an obvious, but understudied question: Does the law itself recognize legal socialization? Knowing whether, and how, American law recognizes its need to legally socialize the citizenry toward democratic norms is a critical step for bridging the divide between legal socialization scholarship and social policy reform. For this essay, we consider all 50 state constitutions, including all previous versions. Our analysis focuses on several specific areas where the text explicitly or implicitly addresses the law as a socializing agent. What we find is a diverse landscape of state law that ranges from silence to indirect and direct endorsement of legal socialization as a purpose of law, an obligation of the state, and a right of the individual citizen. Yet we also find that these acknowledgments are complex and at times contradictory, reflecting deep fissures between the law's commitments to democratic republicanism and its anti‐democratic commitments to the maintenance of privilege and overt oppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a pilot project implemented in Milwaukee's Juvenile Court, which was designed as a preliminary feasibility study to assess whether a change in court procedures could alter young offenders' engagement in the court process and enhance their relationship with the juvenile court judge. Participants in the pilot engaged in regular monthly conversations with the juvenile judge and other legal actors in an informal context focused on collaborative planning and problem solving. The procedural justice and legal socialization literature suggests that these changes in interactions and relationships might facilitate the development of a "consensus" orientation to legal authority associated with a shared trust in the law and a voluntary acceptance of its legitimacy. This paper offers an evaluation of the pilot project using a quasi‐ethnographic approach based on observational data and interviews with participants. Although the original focus of the pilot was on the relationship between the young offenders and the judge and on the impact of that relationship on the youths' attitudes, it became evident, over the course of the study, that the impact of the engagement was felt on both sides of the relationship, and that it was not limited to the judge and the youth. The paper explores the potential value of "reciprocal socialization"—socialization of legal authorities by the subjects with whom they interact—to the successful achievement of the juvenile justice system's aims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]