NCJ Number
187852
Journal
Critical Criminology Volume: 9 Issue: 1/2 Dated: Autumn 2000 Pages: 22-38
Date Published
2000
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This article discusses the gendered construction of expert discourse and analyzes psychiatric evaluations in criminal court.
Abstract
According to critical literature, psychiatrization is a central feature of gendered social control. It operates by orienting women to medical institutions rather than the penal system and, for those women who do enter the criminal justice system, by favoring an interpretation of their behavior in terms of mental health problems. However, the production of gendered social control cannot be reduced to institutional decision making; it also leaves its traces in various discursive forms. One such is forensic psychiatrists' discourse on the offenders they evaluate. This study analyzes such forensic reports as units of a computerized database, with the goal of gaining insight into the text by means of systematic quantitative and qualitative procedures. Even though the expert discourse is shaped by specifications requested by the court, it constructs two very distinct identities that do not correspond to stereotyped conceptions about femininity and masculinity. The article concludes that psychiatrists see women as active, participating subjects, whereas men appear as passive subjects, individuals to whom things are done. However, women are not perceived as being dangerous and thus not meaningful subjects of clinical investigation. The declarative style used by experts when presenting women's cases reinforces the impression of their unworthiness. Table, notes, references, appendix