Chapter 1. The Social Construction of Mental Illness as a Criminal Justice Problem

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
The Social

The History of Unreason

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Samuel Teague ◽  
Peter Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health And Illness ◽  
History Of

This chapter reflects on the importance of the historical narrative of mental illness, arguing that Western countries have sought new ways to confine the mentally ill in the post-asylum era, namely through the effects of stigma and medicalization. The walls are invisible, when once they were physical. The chapter outlines how health and illness can be understood as socially constructed illustrating how mental health has been constructed uniquely across cultures and over time. To understand this process more fully, it is necessary to consider the history of madness, a story of numerous social flashpoints. The trajectories of two primary mental health narratives are charted in this chapter. The authors argue that these narratives have played, and continue to play, an important role in the social construction of mental illness. These narratives are “confinement” and “individual responsibility.” Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Roy Porter, the authors describe how Western culture has come to consider the mentally ill as a distinct, abnormal other.

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.

Commentary on Alexander (1993)

1993 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 388-390
Author(s):  
SETH C. KALICHMAN
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Sex Offenders ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Sexual Offenders ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Health Sciences ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sexually Violent

This commentary on Alexander's article concerning civil commitment of sex offenders concludes that the failure of the mental health sciences to define the psychosexual pathology of sexually violent adults has resulted in an inability to address these disturbances in the criminal justice system. This situation will likely contribute to the social threats posed by sexual offenders. It is suggested that researchers work to establish the mental illness parameters of sexual violence.

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.

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