Welsh, Lucy and Howard, Matthew (2018) Standardisation and the production of justice in summary criminal courts: a post human analysis. Social and Legal Studies. ISSN 0964-6639

PDF - Accepted Version Download (160kB)

Abstract

Since the 1980s, successive governments have become increasingly distrustful of professional judgment in those services which remain funded by the state, including the criminal justice system. Against this background, governments sought to increase efficiency in summary criminal courts. One way that this seems to have occurred is via the use of standardised forms in case progression. During 2013, Welsh conducted empirical research in which the reliance placed on standardised case management forms became apparent. We argue, drawing on post-humanist vocabularies to inform our analytic framework, that such documents may have shifted the temporality of summary criminal justice, which has the (perhaps unintended) consequence of (further) marginalising defendant participation and limiting the types of legal issue that are litigated. These documents and processes, therefore, participate in the development of a particularised, and temporally situated, form of ‘justice’.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Law, Politics and Sociology > Law
Research Centres and Groups:	Crime Research Centre
Subjects:	K Law
Depositing User:	Lucy Welsh
Date Deposited:	18 Jul 2018 14:38
Last Modified:	26 Oct 2018 09:35
URI:	http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/77256

View download statistics for this item

📧 Request an update