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Making Sense of Misdemeanors: Fine Only Offenses in Convivial Court Rooms
Sociological Perspectives ( IF 1.780 ) Pub Date : 2020-12-01 , DOI: 10.1177/0731121420970588
Taylor Needham 1 , Abena Subira Mackall 1 , Becky Pettit 1
Affiliation  

This paper investigates how the complexity of and everyday interactions within the criminal legal system sow confusion about the causes and consequences of low-level misdemeanor, or fine only, legal entanglements. Drawing on data from 62 interviews with people assessed legal debt and 240 hours of ethnographic observation in courtrooms, we describe inconsistencies between the design of the criminal legal system and the organization of defendants’ lives that undermine the ability of defendants to satisfactorily or summarily resolve their legal cases. We also consider how interpersonal interactions within courts undermine the power of defendants to challenge legal authority, court norms, and established criminal legal processes. These findings illustrate a mismatch between expectations about and experiences with misdemeanor charges that place undue burden on disadvantaged defendants and highlight the scale and impact of fine only misdemeanors as a central inequality generating feature of the contemporary criminal legal system.

中文翻译:

理解轻罪:在欢乐法庭中仅罚款的罪行

本文调查了刑事法律系统内的复杂性和日常互动如何造成对低级轻罪或仅罚款的法律纠缠的原因和后果的混淆。根据对评估法律债务的人的 62 次访谈和在法庭上 240 小时的人种学观察的数据,我们描述了刑事法律制度的设计与被告人生活的组织之间的不一致,这些不一致损害了被告人满意或迅速解决他们的问题的能力。法律案件。我们还考虑了法院内的人际交往如何削弱被告质疑法律权威、法院规范和既定刑事法律程序的权力。
更新日期:2020-12-01
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