Telling it how it isn't : obscuring perpetrator responsibility for violent crime Linda Coates and Allan Wade
By: [Coates, Linda].
Contributor(s): Wade, Allan
.
Material type: 
ArticleSeries: Discourse & Society.Publisher: Sage, 2004Subject(s): CANADA | RECOMMENDED READING | ABUSIVE MEN | DOMESTIC VIOLENCE | INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE | JUSTICE | LANGUAGE | PERPETRATORS | PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS | VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE | VIOLENCEOnline resources: Click here to access online | Read abstract
In:
Discourse & Society, 2004, 15(5): 3-30 (Open access)Summary: "Part I of this article introduces the interactional and discursive
view of violence and resistance, part II illustrates its application to the analysis of sexual assault trial judgments, and part III provides a detailed analysis of an entire judgment. In giving their reasons for verdicts and sentences, the majority of judges accounted for the assaults by drawing on psychological
concepts and constructs. These psychological explanations or causal attributions were grouped into one or more of eight categories: alcohol and drug abuse, biological or sexual drive, psychopathology, dysfunctional family upbringing, stress and trauma, character or personality trait, emotional state,
and loss of control. The causal attributions in all categories systematically reformulated deliberate acts of violence into non-deliberate and non-violent acts. Psychologizing attributions, that is, causal attributions that functioned to
conceal the violence and mitigate the perpetrator’s responsibility, accounted for 97 percent of attributions. Through line-by-line analyses of the full text of one
judgment, we show how psychologizing attributions are combined in use with other linguistic devices to (i) conceal violence, (ii) mitigate perpetrators’ responsibility, (iii) conceal victims’ resistance, and (iv) blame or pathologize victims. (Authors' abstract). Record #5350
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Family Violence library | Online | Available | ON17030023 |
Discourse & Society, 2004, 15(5): 3-30 (Open access)
Recommended reading
"Part I of this article introduces the interactional and discursive
view of violence and resistance, part II illustrates its application to the analysis of sexual assault trial judgments, and part III provides a detailed analysis of an entire judgment. In giving their reasons for verdicts and sentences, the majority of judges accounted for the assaults by drawing on psychological
concepts and constructs. These psychological explanations or causal attributions were grouped into one or more of eight categories: alcohol and drug abuse, biological or sexual drive, psychopathology, dysfunctional family upbringing, stress and trauma, character or personality trait, emotional state,
and loss of control. The causal attributions in all categories systematically reformulated deliberate acts of violence into non-deliberate and non-violent acts. Psychologizing attributions, that is, causal attributions that functioned to
conceal the violence and mitigate the perpetrator’s responsibility, accounted for 97 percent of attributions. Through line-by-line analyses of the full text of one
judgment, we show how psychologizing attributions are combined in use with other linguistic devices to (i) conceal violence, (ii) mitigate perpetrators’ responsibility, (iii) conceal victims’ resistance, and (iv) blame or pathologize victims. (Authors' abstract). Record #5350
