Justifying leniency at a time of punitiveness: Federal clemency narratives in the United States
Scholarship on contemporary US penality has paid little attention to practices opposing the punitive trend. This study explores clemency – official acts moderating punishment and its lasting consequences – as an executive back-end mechanism of leniency. To explore how clemency is discussed at a time...
| Autor principal: | |
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| Tipo de documento: | Electrónico Artículo |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
2023
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| En: |
Punishment & society
Año: 2023, Volumen: 25, Número: 5, Páginas: 1334-1352 |
| Acceso en línea: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Journals Online & Print: | Gargar...
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| Verificar disponibilidad: | HBZ Gateway |
| Palabras clave: |
| Sumario: | Scholarship on contemporary US penality has paid little attention to practices opposing the punitive trend. This study explores clemency – official acts moderating punishment and its lasting consequences – as an executive back-end mechanism of leniency. To explore how clemency is discussed at a time of increasingly punitive penal policies, I conducted a qualitative analysis of 36 years’ worth of presidential statements on clemency from Reagan to Obama. This study revealed that three central justifications are used to validate clemency decisions: individuals’ deservingness, community benefits and justice ideals. Discussions of clemency challenge punitiveness by closing the social distance between individuals with criminal histories and law-abiding society and calling for moderation in punishment and penal reform. However, by using a justificatory tone and mirroring penal rationales, clemency statements are limited in inviting progressive change and at times actively drive and reinforce dominant punitive narratives. |
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| ISSN: | 1741-3095 |
| DOI: | 10.1177/14624745231168780 |
