单项选择题

An important point in the development of a governmental agency is the codification of its controlling practices. The study of law or jurisprudence is usually concerned with the codes and practices of specific governments, past or present. It is also concerned with certain questions upon which a functional analysis of behavior has some bearing. What is a law What role does a law play in governmental control In particular, what effect does it have upon the behavior of the controllee and of the members of the governmental agency itself
A law usually has two important features. In the first place, it specifies behavior. The behavior is usually not described topographically but rather in terms of its effect upon others - the effect that is the object of governmental control. When we are told, for example, that an individual has "committed perjury," we are not told what he has actually said. "Robbery" and "assault" do not refer to specific forms of response. Only properties of behavior which are aversive to others are mentioned - in perjury the lack of a customary correspondence between a verbal response and certain factual circumstances, in robbery the removal of positive reinforces, and in assault the aversive character of physical injury. In the second place, a law specifies or implies a consequence, usually punishment, A law is thus a statement of a contingency of reinforcement maintained by a governmental agency. The contingency may have prevailed as a controlling practice prior to its codification as a law, or it may represent a new practice which goes into effect with the passage of the law. Laws are thus both descriptions of past practices and assurafices of similar practices in the future. A law is a rule of conduct in the sense that it specifies the consequences of certain actions which in mm "rule" behavior.
The effect of a law upon the controlling agency The government of a large group requires an elaborate organization, the practices of which may be made more consistent and effective by codification. How codes of law affect governmental agents is the principal subject of jurisprudence. The behavioral processes are complex, although presumably not novel. In order to maintain or "enforce" contingencies of governmental control, an agency must establish the fact that an individual has behaved illegally and must interpret a code to determine the punishment. It must then carry out the punishment. These labors are usually divided among special subdivisions of the agency. The advantages gained when the individual is "not under man but under law" have usually been obvious, and the great codifiers of law occupy places of honor in the history of civilization. Codification does not, however, change the essential nature of governmental action nor remedy all its defects.
Comprehension Questions:
What does the example "committed perjury" illustrate