Criminal Justice and The Ideal Defendant in the Making of Remorse and Responsibility

Description

This book investigates how defendants are assessed by criminal justice decision-makers, such as judges, lawyers, probation officers, parole board members and those involved in restorative justice. What attitudes and emotions are defendants expected to show? How are these expectations communicated? With contributors from across the world, the book opens new comparative possibilities and research agendas. The book argues that defendants, at various stages of the criminal justice process, are expected to show a (more or less) free acceptance of guilt and individual responsibility along with a display of ‘appropriate’ emotions, ideally including ‘genuine’ remorse. It examines why such expressions of individual responsibility and remorse are so important to decision-makers and the state. ‘Criminal Justice and The Ideal Defendant is a dazzling contribution. It takes the debate in important new directions, and poses a powerful challenge to conventional wisdom.’ Susan A. Bandes, Centennial Professor of Law Emeritus, DePaul University College of Law, USA ‘Criminal Justice and The Ideal Defendant originates new research agendas and fresh perspectives on the key problem of remorse and responsibility.’ Julian Roberts, Emeritus Professor of Criminology, Oxford University, UK ‘This fascinating volume reveals the complex role of emotions in criminal justice; a topic that requires and deserves our urgent attention, if we are to find our way towards more honest and more just systems and practices.’ Fergus McNeill, Professor of Criminology & Social Work, Glasgow University, Scotland ‘Stewart Field and Cyrus Tata have brought together leading scholars from a range of disciplines to explore the crucial puzzle that is “the ideal defendant.” This is the ideal collection on the ideal defendant.”’ Steven Tudor, Senior Lecturer, La Trobe University, Australia ‘Criminal Justice and The Ideal Defendant is a ground-breaking international, interdisciplinary volume’. Rob Canton, Professor in Community and Criminal Justice, De Montfort University, England Acknowledgements Contents List of Contributors PART 1: THE MAKING OF REMORSE AND RESPONSIBILITY 1. Locating the Ideal Defendant: Punishment, Violence and Legitimacy I. The Ideal Defendant in the Making of Remorse and Responsibility II. Contextualising the Book III. Underpinning Themes, Concerns and Concepts IV. Overall Structure and Individual Chapters 2. Remorse in the French Criminal Justice System: A Subterranean Influence I. A Continuing Examination of the Feelings Associated with the Commission of the Offence II. The Criminal Process: Responding to Emotional Deviance III. Conclusion 3. Constructing Remorse: Interactional Dimensions of Finding an Emotion I. Introduction II. Research Design and Data III. Remorse: Emotion in Law IV. Constructing Remorse V. Discussion VI. Conclusion 4. Constructing Ideal Defendants in the Pre-sentence Phase: The Connection between Responsibility and Potential Remorse I. Introduction II. Methods and Data III. The Conversation IV. The Past: Criminal Reasons V. (Self-)Diagnosis between Past and Present VI. Accepting Future Treatment VII. Communicating Possible Remorse in Reports VIII. Concluding Discussion: The Temporal Prism of Moral Emotions 5. The Paradoxical Uses of 'Culture' in Judicial Assessment of Defendant Demeanour and Remorse I. Remorse and Culture: Interpretative Puzzles II. The Promise of Culture: Lessons from Anthropology III. Method: Tracing Judging in Practice IV. The Cultural Fix: Seeing the Individual More Clearly – or Not? V. Seeing through Culture: Notes Towards the Cultural Study of Culture and Remorse 6. Cultural Sensitivity Training, Judicial Feelings and Everyday Practice: Conversations at the Edge of Research I. Introduction II. The Cutting Room Floor III. 'Culture' in the Context of Remorse Assessment IV. Cultural Sensitivity Training: In Search of the Legible Offender V. Desiring 'Literacy', the Feeling of doing a Good Job PART 2: BEYOND REMORSE 7. 'Remorse Is Not Enough': Disentangling the Roles of Remorse and Insight in the Construction of the Ideal Defendant I. Introduction II. Interrelationship between the Concepts of Remorse and Insight III. Constructing the Remorseful and Insightful Offender IV. Scripting Redemption – The Movement from Remorse to Insight 8. The Construction of the Ideal Defendant: Comparative Understandings of the Normalisation of Guilt I. Introduction II. The Significance of the Guilty Plea as a Finding of the Court III. The Role of Courts and Lawyers in Normalising the Inevitability of Guilt IV. The Routinisation of Guilt Before the Court V. The Normalisation of Guilt in France VI. Encouraging and Legitimating Defendants' Assumptions of Responsibility: The Role of Public Prosecutors in France VII. Public Hearings and the Judicial Verification of Assumptions of Responsibility VIII. Conclusion 9. Looking for the Ideal Parole Applicant? I. Introduction II. 'Remorse' in Criminal Justice III. The 'Ideal' Applicant for Parole IV. Does the Parole Board look for Evidence of 'Remorse'? V. Parole Hearings in England and Wales VI. The Practical Challenges to Spotting Remorse in Prison VII. Conclusions: Justifying 'Parole' PART 3: THE POLITICAL AND CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REMORSE AND RESPONSIBILITY 10. The Enactment of Political Cultures in the Criminal Court Process: Remorse, Responsibility and the Unique Individual before the French cours d'assises I. Introduction II. Beyond Remorse: The Concept of the 'Good Accused' Before the French cour d'assises III. Performing Concern for the Unique Individual: The Significance of Roles and Relationships IV. Questions of Legitimacy: Keeping the State's (Implicit) Promises? V. Conclusions 11. Punishment and the 'Blind Symbiosis' of Legal and Rehabilitation Work in the Making of the 'Ideal' Defendant I. Map of the Chapter II. Justice Professionals and the Problem of Coercion III. The Symbiosis of Legal and Rehabilitative Work IV. How is the Symbiosis of Legal and Rehabilitative/Therapeutic Professional Work Blind to Cross-Contamination? V. Conclusions and New Research Agendas 12. Remorse and Restoration: The Role of Remorse in Constructing the 'Ideal Offender' of Restorative Justice I. Introduction II. Preliminary Considerations III. Normative Discourses IV. The 'Ideal Offender' of Restorative Justice V. A Contextualisation VI. Restorative Justice to Come VII. Concluding Remarks Index