AUSTIN SARAT, Vengeance, Victims and the Identities of Law
| Published date | 01 June 1997 |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399700600207 |
| Date | 01 June 1997 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
ABSTRACTS
AUSTIN
SARAT,
Vengeance,
Victims
and
the
Identities
of
Law
Postmodernism
fragments
identities,
exposes
contingencies,
and
establishes
new
connections.
In
so
doing
it
calls
into
question
simple
distinctions
between
guilt
and
innocence,
criminal
and
victim.
The
victims’
rights
movement
is,
in
part,
a
response
to
postmodernism
and
an
attempt
to
reassert
the
position
of
the
victim
as
the
foun-
dation
for
criminal
justice.
One
aspect
of
that
movement
is
the
effort
to
make
room
for
the
voice
of the
victim
or
the
victim’s
family
in
what
are
said
to
be
abstract,
impersonal
criminal
processes.
The
high
tide
of the
victims’
rights
movement
in
the
United
States
came
in
Payne
v.
Tennessee.
In
that
case
the
Supreme
Court
allowed
the
use
of
so-called
victim-impact
statements
in
capital
trials.
It
treated
vengeance
as
a
legitimate
part
of
the
apparatus
of
modern
legality.
But
this article
claims
that
what
Payne
did
was
to
destabilize
the
revenge/retribution
distinction
and
to
expose
fissures
in
law’s
ideological
apparatus.
The
victims’
rights
movement,
with
its
associated
call
for
vengeance,
highlights
the
way
identity
is
constructed
in
law
as
well
as
the
way
law’s
identity
is
constructed
in
the
effort
to
police
the
revenge/retri-
bution
distinction.
JULIE
WALLBANK,
The
Campaign
for
Change
of
the
Child
Support
Act
1991:
Recon-
stituting
the
’Absent’ Father
The
Child
Support
Act
1991
is
a
piece
of
legislation
which
was
introduced
by
the
Conservative
government
in
order
to
ensure
that
fathers
remained
financially
responsible
for
their
children’s
upkeep
in
the
event
of
a
breakdown
in
the
relation-
ship
between
the
parents.
While
the
Act
is
overwhelmingly
concerned
with
enforc-
ing
the
financial
nexus
between
father
and
child
it
also
embodies
the
principle
that
ongoing
parental
(or
more
appropriately
paternal)
responsibility
is
a
laudable
aim.
The
Act
was
implemented
in
April
1993
and
since
the
Child
Support
Agency
(the
public
body
responsible
for
administrating
the
legislation)
took
over
the
issue
of
child
maintenance
from
the
courts
both
the
Act
and
the
agency
have
been
subjected
to
intense
scrutiny
and
criticism.
One
of
the
most
strident
campaigns
against
the
Child
Support
Act
has
come
from
a
large
group
of
middle-class
men
who
claim
that
they
are
the
victims
of
an
unjust
and
overbearing
law
and
also
of
negative
and
false
dis-
courses
which
portray
non-residential
fathers
as
’feckless’.
This
article
is
concerned
with
demonstrating
how
non-residential
fathers
have
been
constructed
and
have
con-
structed
themselves
in
social
and
legal
debates
over
child
support.
Moreover,
it
also
elucidates
the
ways
in
which
non-residential
fathers
have
inverted
the
negative
images
and
used
their
victim
status
in
order
to
bring
about
reforms
to
the
legislation
from
which
they
and
their
reconstituted
families
stand
to
gain
the
most.
~ ,
~.i (. ~
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