RT Article
T1 Justifying leniency at a time of punitiveness: Federal clemency narratives in the United States
JF Punishment & society
VO 25
IS 5
SP 1334
OP 1352
A1 Canossini, Erika
LA English
YR 2023
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/186866564X
AB 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.
K1 Discourse
K1 back-end mechanisms
K1 Reentry
K1 leniency
K1 penal narratives
K1 Clemency
DO 10.1177/14624745231168780