Mediated Representations and Understandings of Co-Offending Women

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Barlow
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Female Offenders ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Crime And Criminal Justice

This chapter begins by introducing readers to the significance of the social construction of crime and criminal justice issues. It outlines the existing literature which explores the dominant ways in which female offenders and co-offenders are represented in media and legal discourse, particularly drawing upon dichotomies such as bad/ mad. It also considers the ways in which gendered constructions, such as ‘bad mother’ (Barnett, 2006), evil manipulator (Jewkes, 2015) and mythical monster (Heidensohn, 1996; Jewkes, 2015) permeate media representations of female offenders.

New victimisations: female sex worker hate crime and the ‘ideal victim’

2018 ◽  
pp. 103-122
Author(s):  
Karen Corteen
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Hate Crime ◽  
Female Sex Workers ◽  
Female Sex Worker ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Female Sex ◽  
The Social

Female sex worker victim characteristics and their social, situational and interactive contexts have not substantially changed. Yet, the manner in which female sex worker victimisation is currently understood has changed in some quarters. This chapter documents the unusual inclusion of female sex workers into Merseyside police hate crime policy and practice. Given that female sex workers embody a ‘non-ideal’ victim identity the focus here is to consider what this development may mean for Christie’s (1986) ‘ideal victim’ thesis. In so doing the role (or lack of) emotion and compassion will be discussed. The chapter concludes that victims and victimisation have been reimagined and new victimisations have arisen. However, with regard to hate crime, and the social construction of, and criminal justice responses to the victimisation of female sex workers Christie’s ‘ideal victim’ thesis remains contemporarily relevant and predominantly intact.

What’s Left? The prospects for social democratic criminology

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Reiner
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Ideal Type ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Law ◽  
Crime And Criminal Justice

This paper analyses the fate of social democratic sensibility in thinking about crime and criminal justice that prevailed for most of the 20th century, until a profound rupture in culture, political economy, crime and criminal justice. The paper proposes an ideal-type of social democratic criminology, and contrasts it with the law-and-order perspective that displaced it after the 1970s. The sources and consequences of this seismic shift are analysed and evaluated. Finally, following the fracturing of the last forty years’ neoliberal hegemony in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, it considers the prospects of a revival of the social democratic perspective in criminological thinking.

Deviant Selves, Transgressive Acts, and Moral Narratives

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thaddeus Müller
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Symbolic Interaction ◽  
Symbolic Interactionist ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Ethnographic Approach ◽  
The Social

This chapter on crime, transgression, and justice focuses on interactional meaning-making processes that shape the moral narratives of a range of actors such as perpetrators, police, and judges. These narratives include processes such as labeling, stigmatization, and criminalization. These processes are about (1) degrading, dominating, and excluding, and (2) their narrative counterparts, which focus on resisting the othering claims of moral narratives. This chapter focuses on two fundamental contributions of symbolic interaction to this field: the labeling perspective, and the ethnographic approach studying the social construction of moral meanings in everyday interactions. I will also describe two themes: (1) violence, the perspective of the “badass,” and (2) the criminal-justice system as a labeling machine. This chapter shows that because of its theoretical and methodological tools, symbolic-interactionist studies are well equipped to listen to voices of marginalized groups and show their agency in their fight for justice.

scholarly journals Intersectionality, British criminology and race: Are we there yet?

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alpa Parmar
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Criminological Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Religion And Gender ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Missed Opportunity

Intersectionality is the study of overlapping social identities and related systems of oppression, discrimination and domination. From an intersectional perspective, aspects of a person’s identity, for example race, class and gender are understood to be enmeshed. To understand how systemic injustice operates and is produced, a multi-dimensional framework which captures how forms of oppression intersect and are shaped by one another, is necessary. Although the merits of an intersectional approach in criminology have been widely shown and discussed in US scholarship, within British criminology, there have been few analyses that have implemented an intersectional lens – either explicitly or implicitly. Correspondingly, close examination of the social construction of race within the criminal justice system has been largely absent in British criminology. In the following paper, I suggest that these two developments are co-constitutive – that British criminology’s unwillingness to engage with race has resulted in the reticence towards an intersectional approach and vice versa. This is both problematic and a missed opportunity. At a time when much criminological research convenes around the intersection of race, class, religion and gender, the absence of intersectional approaches and the lack of discussion about the racializing consequences of the criminal justice system serve to stymie meaningful debate and advancement of the field.

Rape and Criminal Justice: The Social Construction of Sexual Assault.

Social Forces ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 550
Author(s):  
Sally Ward ◽  
Gary D. LaFree
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
The Social

“I'm Just an Armless Guitarist”: Tony Melendez, Disability, and the Social Construction of Virtuosity

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 280-307
Author(s):  
DAVID VANDERHAMM
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Pope John Paul Ii ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
The Social ◽  
Bodily Difference ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Body ◽  
Complex Subject

AbstractIn 1987, Tony Melendez—a guitarist born without arms who plays the instrument with his feet—played at a youth rally for Pope John Paul II. Immediately after his performance, the Pope kissed Melendez and instructed him to continue “giving hope” through his music. Although the guitar accompaniment of confessional, singer-songwriter music is rarely considered virtuosic, Tony Melendez's bodily difference makes his ability to sonically pass as what he calls a “common player” an impactful display of skill for his audiences. Because Melendez's body is treated as simultaneously virtuosic and disabled, his example foregrounds the social construction of both categories and challenges the tendency to isolate either in the individual body. Rather than suggesting a sort of qualified approach to “disabled” virtuosity, this article argues that there is no such thing as unqualified virtuosity. The presumed limitations and possibilities of bodies, instruments, and repertoires always inform our understandings of skill, but we are not always explicitly aware of them. Through interviews and analysis of his performances and their media representations, I show how bodily difference and the complex subject positions of both performers and audiences contribute to what counts as skill, creative labor, and agency within a particular context.

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