News

Henrique Carvalho and Anastasia Chamberlen's forthcoming publication on the motivation to punish in Punishment and Society is now available online at: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1462474517699814

The argument advanced in this paper is that the motivation to punish relies on punishment producing a kind of solidarity that allows individuals to pursue emotional release together with a sense of belonging, without having to question or address why it is that they felt alienated and insecure in the first place. This raises the possibility that the reason why we believe punishment to be useful, and why we are motivated to punish, is because we derive pleasure from the utility of punishment. Simply stated, punishment pleases. It then analyses the relationship between punishment and solidarity to investigate why and how punishment pleases. We argue that the pleasure of punishment is directly linked to the specific kind of solidarity that punishment produces, which we call hostile solidarity. The paper explores the links between punishment and identity in order to examine the allure of hostile solidarity and then draws implications from this perspective and sets out an agenda for future research.

Prof Vanessa Munro's forthcoming publication on sexual offences law and policy in Social and Legal Studies is now available to read online at: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0964663916682584

Although the consent threshold remains fundamental to the demarcation of acceptable from unacceptable forms of behaviour within contemporary sexual offences law and policy, there has clearly been a shift in recent years in England and Wales towards more ‘contextual’ understandings and interpretations thereof. In many respects, this is a welcome development, which has the potential to at least partially redress the problematic assumption of a disembodied, individualistic and self-determining chooser, which critics maintain has underpinned many conventional (liberal) accounts of autonomy. At the same time, however, there are risks associated with this turn to context that require vigilance. More specifically, this shift has opened the door to greater reliance upon the often closely associated concepts of vulnerability and exploitation. In this article, I will argue that, while these concepts can be valuable in highlighting and challenging the constraining conditions under which (sexual) choices may be made, they can also be deployed in the service of moral and political interventions that entrench precariousness in the name of protection and/or increase surveillance in pursuit of responsibilization. To assess their impact, therefore, it is necessary to explore the concrete implications of this turn for those most immediately involved. In the following discussion, I will do so first by highlighting some of its perhaps unintended, but certainly undesirable, effects in the specific contexts of sexual assault and sex work policy. Having done so, I will move on to explore what we might learn more broadly from this experience about the benefits, blind spots and backfire in using vulnerability as a lens and lever for the pursuit of social justice.

CJC member Prof Vanessa Munro has been invited by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to take part in an expert panel to discuss the issue of gender discrimination under the criminal law. The Expert Meeting on 'Discriminatory Use of Criminal Law from a Human Rights Perspective in Matters Related to Sexual Conduct and Sexuality' runs from 29-31st March at the UNHCR in Geneva and brings together experts from around the world - many of them from the third sector, but also academics from a range of disciplines. Vanessa will be leading discussion in a panel on 'Criminal Law, Human Rights, Feminism and the State'.

CJC Director Jackie Hodgson will give a talk on 'Protecting Suspects in Europe: Towards Universal Norms' at the Edinburgh Centre for Legal Theory on 22 March. Details of the talk can be found here: http://www.centreforlegaltheory.ed.ac.uk/events/events/edinburgh_centre_for_legal_theory/tbc_-_prof._jackie_hodgson_university_of_warwick

This paper discusses domestic and European legal frameworks governing custodial legal advice and the challenges in ensuring that legal assistance for suspects held in police custody across different jurisdictions is effective in practice. Beginning with an appreciation of the significance of police detention and interrogation for the investigation, prosecution and disposition of criminal cases, the paper goes on to analyse the features of criminal justice present across a variety of procedural models, which either promote or prevent legal assistance as a due process right. The paper draws on recent comparative empirical research that includes France, England and Wales, Scotland and the Netherlands, as well as Jackie's earlier work on defence lawyers in England and Wales and in France.