scholarly journals El archivo y el testigo. Un análisis de la relación entre memoria y justicia a partir del caso colombiano

2019 ◽  
pp. 105-152
Author(s):  
Farid Samir Benavides Vanegas

In memory studies and in the field of transitional justice, the story of the victims is usually seen as relevant. It is usually assumed that what is said by the victims has an absolute value of truth and cannot be controverted, otherwise we would be attacking their dignity. And, next to this, it is maintained that everything held by the perpetrators is false, and therefore we cannot believe absolutely in what they tell. But we have to take into account that neither perpetrator nor victims are witnesses, but, from a legal point of view, they are active parties in that social relationship we call crime. In this text, I want to discuss the relationship between the witness and the archive and for that I use the Colombian case as a case study. Initially I analyze the question of memory and later I analyze the relationships between truth and memory. With this text, I intend to contribute to the studies of transitional justice that take for granted, without further analysis, the validity of the documentary contributions or the stories of the victims and the witnesses. It is not a mere theoretical pretension, since it depends on the elaboration of truth criteria for both the criminal justice system and the Truth Commissions.

Author(s):  
Philipp Wesche

Abstract∞ In internal armed conflicts, business actors often play an important role. Yet, their criminal responsibility is rarely addressed in transitional justice (TJ). This article presents a case study of the Colombian transition process with respect to the paramilitaries, which has resulted in hundreds of criminal investigations against business actors in the ordinary justice system. Nonetheless, the large majority continues in impunity. Based on qualitative interviews with public prosecutors, the article analyzes the main obstacles to holding them accountable, arguing that TJ processes should give more emphasis to the private-sector supporters of armed groups so as to prevent the recurrence of violence.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1354067X2110173
Author(s):  
Danilo Silva Guimarães

This article aims to discuss the relationship between personal cultural experience and knowledge construction in psychology, from the perspective of the Semiotic-Cultural Constructivism. The thoughts here presented are, at the same time, from within psychology and about psychology. The researcher is culturally situated and science is a field of production of cultural works that aims to create perspectives of knowledge about the world. Researchers can and must create some detachment from their field of study to be able to understand the course of their own knowledge constructions. This detachment is achieved through a historical–philosophical view on the theoretical–methodological propositions of their field of research. As a case study, we selected for analysis the field’s pioneer productions, from the years 1982 to 2004. The material showed that the rationality that characterizes scientific research is directed, in this field, to creating semiotic resources for further developing reflexivity in psychology, as a recursive and open-ended process. The theoretical–methodological work of the researcher concerns its own personal cultural experience and the tradition of the already constructed knowledge, selected to a dialogue about the ethical implications of human action. Therefore, advances in psychological knowledge construction cannot be addressed from an external, allegedly neutral point of view, focused on the efficacy of the instruments resulting from the said “scientific progress.”


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 549-572 ◽  
Author(s):  
David O’Mahony

This article examines the incorporation of restorative principles and practices within reforms of Northern Ireland’s youth justice system, adopted following the peace process. It considers whether restorative justice principles can be successfully incorporated into criminal justice reform as part of a process of transitional justice. The article argues that restorative justice principles, when brought within criminal justice, can contribute to the broader process of transitional justice and peace building, particularly in societies where the police and criminal justice system have been entwined in the conflict. In these contexts restorative justice within criminal justice can help civil society to take a stake in the administration and delivery of criminal justice, it can help break down hostility and animosity towards criminal justice and contribute to the development of social justice and civic agency, so enabling civil society to move forward in a transitional environment.


Author(s):  
Sarah Esther Lageson

Online criminal histories document and publicize even minor brushes with the law and represent people who may not even be guilty of any crime. This has dramatically changed the relationship that millions of Americans have with the criminal justice system and may affect their social and private lives. Drawing on interviews and fieldwork with people attempting to expunge and legally seal their criminal records, I explore how online versions of these records impact family relationships. Many who appear on mug shot and criminal history websites are arrestees who are never formally charged or convicted of a crime. The indiscriminate posting of all types of justice contact on websites may impact those who, for the most part, desist from crime and are core contributors to their family and community. I find that many of those who are affected by the stigma of online records did not know that records existed until they “popped up” unexpectedly, and that this experience leads them to self-select out of family duties that contribute to child well-being.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel LaChance ◽  
Paul Kaplan

Popular documentary representations of crime and punishment have traditionally tended to fall into two camps: programs that are critical of law enforcement agencies and those that are sympathetic to them. In this article, we show how programs that present themselves as critical of legal authorities can nonetheless reinforce the “law and order punitivism” that underlay the ratcheting up of harsh punishment in the late 20th century. In a case study of the popular documentary miniseries Making a Murderer, we show how this can happen when texts fetishize the question of a criminal defendant’s innocence, adopt a “good versus evil” approach to players in the criminal justice system, and perpetuate a procedural rather than substantive vision of justice. Arguments are supported by a close reading of Making a Murderer and illustrated by a line of discussion it inspired in an internet forum.


Incarceration ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 263266632093644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian O’Donnell ◽  
Eoin O’Sullivan

This article argues in favour of ‘coercive confinement’ as a useful addition to the criminological lexicon. It suggests that to properly understand a country’s level of punitiveness requires consideration of a range of institutions that fall outside the remit of the formal criminal justice system. It also requires a generous longitudinal focus. Using Ireland as a case study, such an approach reveals that since the foundation of the state, the prison has gradually become ascendant. This might be read to imply a punitive turn. But when a broader view is taken to include involuntary detention in psychiatric hospitals, confinement in Magdalen homes and mother and baby homes, and detention in industrial and reformatory schools, the trajectory is strongly downward. This might be read to imply a national programme of decarceration. (In recent years, asylum seekers have been held in congregate settings that are experienced as prison-like and they must be factored into the analysis.) While some of these institutions may have been used with peculiar enthusiasm in Ireland, none are Irish inventions. It would be profitable to extend the idea of ‘coercive confinement’ to other nations with a view to adding some necessary nuance to our understanding of the reach and grip of the carceral state.


2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 608-637
Author(s):  
Catriona Kennedy

AbstractIn the past two decades, remembrance has emerged as one of the dominant preoccupations in Irish historical scholarship. There has, however, been little sustained analysis of the relationship between gender and memory in Irish studies, and gender remains under-theorized in memory studies more broadly. Yet one of the striking aspects of nineteenth-century commemorations of the 1798 and 1803 rebellions is the relatively prominent role accorded to women and, in particular, Sarah Curran, Pamela Fitzgerald, and Matilda Tone, the widows of three of the most celebrated United Irish “martyrs.” By analyzing the mnemonic functions these female figures performed in nineteenth-century Irish nationalist discourse, this article offers a case study of the circumstances in which women may be incorporated into, rather than excluded, from national memory cultures. This incorporation, it is argued, had much to do with the fraught political context in which the 1798 rebellion and its leaders were memorialized. As the remembrance of the rebellion in the first half of the nineteenth century assumed a covert character, conventionally gendered distinctions between private grief and public remembrance, intimate histories and heroic reputations, and family genealogy and public biography became blurred so as to foreground women and the female mourner.


2006 ◽  
Vol 188 (6) ◽  
pp. 541-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Barrett ◽  
Sarah Byford ◽  
Prathiba Chitsabesan ◽  
Cassandra Kenning

BackgroundThe full costs of accommodating and supporting young people in the criminal justice system are unknown. There is also concern about the level of mental health needs among young offenders and the provision of appropriate mental health services.AimsTo estimate the full cost of supporting young people in the criminal justice system in England and Wales and to examine the relationship between needs, service use and cost.MethodCross-sectional survey of 301 young offenders, 151 in custody and 150 in the community, conducted in six geographically representative areas of England and Wales.ResultsMental health service use was low despite high levels of need, particularly in the community Monthly costs were significantly higher among young people interviewed in secure facilities than in the community ($4645 v. $ 1863; P < 0.001). Younger age and a depressed mood were associated with greater costs.ConclusionsYoung people in the criminal justice system are a significant financial burden not only on that system but also on social services, health and education. The relationship between cost and depressed mood indicates a role for mental health services in supporting young offenders, particularly those in the community.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 310-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evgenia Milman ◽  
Joah L. Williams ◽  
Kaitlin Bountress ◽  
Alyssa A. Rheingold

Homicide survivors are at increased risk for mental health disorders, including depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and complicated grief (CG). Accordingly, this survey study examined how satisfaction with the criminal justice system (CJS) was associated with depression, PTSD, and CG among 47 homicide survivors. It also examined how satisfaction with specific aspects of the CJS related to satisfaction with the overall CJS. Satisfaction with the overall CJS was uniquely associated with depression (odds ratio [OR] = 2.32; 95% confidence interval [CI] [1.16, 4.66]) while satisfaction with the police department was uniquely associated with CG (OR = 2.14; 95% CI [1.02, 4.47]). Satisfaction with having input into the CJS process and satisfaction with efforts devoted by the CJS to apprehend the perpetrator were uniquely related to satisfaction with the overall CJS (β = .49, p = .003 and β = .40, p = .007, respectively).


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document