Improper guilt: On exceptional postponements in the formal manufacture of criminals


Nicolas Carrier, Carleton University

Theoretical criminology has not yet taken stock of the crucial role played by the admission of guilt in summary justice: it allows criminal law to absolve itself from the violence it employs to manufacture criminals and produce ‘just’ punishments. Relying on some elements of Luhmann’s sociological theory, our thesis proposes that, in summary justice, the admission of guilt deparadoxifies legal self-referentiality, allowing criminal law to maintain a blind spot on the violence that precedes punishment. This thesis was developed following the observation of peculiar courtroom decisions, undocumented in the academic literature: exceptional instances where individuals are maintained in a state of pre-penal legal ensnarement on the grounds of an improper admission of guilt.

Non-presenting author: Jeffrey Monaghan, Carleton University

This paper will be presented at the following session: