Justifying ‘Justice’: Tracing the role of ignorance in the cultural politics of punishment

  • Peacock, Chloe (Principal Investigator)

Project Details

Description

My ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship project explores the cultural and ideological processes that underpin contemporary criminal justice policy and practices.

I am developing a series of publications building on my ESRC-funded PhD (awarded in January 2021, Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths of London). This work explores how different forms of ignorance enabled and legitimised the state’s swift and startlingly punitive social penal and social policy reactions to the 2011 'riots', which disproportionately targeted young people from minoritised and marginalised backgrounds. Drawing on qualitative interviews with prosecutors, sentencers and policymakers who were responsible for designing and delivering this response, alongside critical analysis of media and political discourse, the project examines the narratives, assumptions and claims that they mobilised to justify and normalise the violent and discriminatory backlash to the unrest.

Taking a broader view, the project traces how selective and distorted imaginations of crime, criminality, the public and punishment have been mobilised by conservative political movements in the past decade, focusing on the UK and the US. In particular, my work aims to deepen our understanding of the multifaceted role of denial, amnesia, silence and secrecy in maintaining and legitimising racialised regimes of punishment.

I am also developing new projects to extend this research area.
StatusFinished
Effective start/end date1/10/2130/09/22

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