{"title":"Framing Meaning through Criminalization","authors":"Javier Wilenmann","doi":"10.1525/NCLR.2019.22.1.3","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Contemporary legal scholarship on criminalization focuses on evaluating the legitimacy of legislative decisions according to abstract standards of justice. In recent years, socio-legally oriented scholarship has attempted to do away with this focus by linking the theory of criminalization to the study of the real trends of criminal law enforcement. The article offers a critique of both approaches in what refers to the traditional area of application of the theory of criminalization, namely symbolic criminalization. It argues that whereas traditional papers discuss the legitimacy of the “enforcement of morality” through the criminal law, symbolic criminalization conflicts actually originate in disputes about meaning in plural societies. The real question that this phenomenon poses is thus not whether the enforcement of neutral morality is legitimate, but rather whether meaning framing through criminalization is.","PeriodicalId":44796,"journal":{"name":"New Criminal Law Review","volume":"63 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2019-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"New Criminal Law Review","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1525/NCLR.2019.22.1.3","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Contemporary legal scholarship on criminalization focuses on evaluating the legitimacy of legislative decisions according to abstract standards of justice. In recent years, socio-legally oriented scholarship has attempted to do away with this focus by linking the theory of criminalization to the study of the real trends of criminal law enforcement. The article offers a critique of both approaches in what refers to the traditional area of application of the theory of criminalization, namely symbolic criminalization. It argues that whereas traditional papers discuss the legitimacy of the “enforcement of morality” through the criminal law, symbolic criminalization conflicts actually originate in disputes about meaning in plural societies. The real question that this phenomenon poses is thus not whether the enforcement of neutral morality is legitimate, but rather whether meaning framing through criminalization is.
期刊介绍:
Focused on examinations of crime and punishment in domestic, transnational, and international contexts, New Criminal Law Review provides timely, innovative commentary and in-depth scholarly analyses on a wide range of criminal law topics. The journal encourages a variety of methodological and theoretical approaches and is a crucial resource for criminal law professionals in both academia and the criminal justice system. The journal publishes thematic forum sections and special issues, full-length peer-reviewed articles, book reviews, and occasional correspondence.