Lived Experiences, Bodily Autonomy and the Framing of Criminal Responsibility
| Published date | 01 December 2020 |
| Date | 01 December 2020 |
| Author | Chris Ashford,Alan Reed |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022018320975514 |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
Editorial
Lived Experiences, Bodily
Autonomy and the Framing
of Criminal Responsibility
Chris Ashford
Northumbria University, UK
Alan Reed
Northumbria University, UK
The lived experience offers us insightsinto the complex and nuanced ways that the criminal law shapes and is
shaped by society. Doctrinal understandings of criminal law reflect moments of legal praxis, when individual
freedom,responsibility and socialsanctions interact withinthe framework of doctrinallegal enquiry. As Giddens
has noted, ‘if an individual is modelled as abstracted from this ‘living’ context, then that individual cannot be
‘ethically’ linked with his or her behaviour,and thus cannot justly be understood as responsible’.
1
It is therefore
through a focus on the ‘livedexperience’ that we can seek to get some approximation of the ways that doctrinal
law is transformed into something experienced and lived through.
The Covid-19 global pandemic has perhaps provided a vivid example of such a moment. When these
articles were originally commissioned, such an event was reasonably reserved for science fiction writers, and
apocalyptic planners. Yet, as a number of our contributors identify, the pandemic has provided an added
impetus and cast into vivid light acute issues pertaining to gender and sexuality and the criminal law.
2
Our
authors each draw upon the lived experience of criminal law to provide doctrinal and/or policy recommen-
dations that better capture the nuance and complexity of these lived experiences.
Criminal law acts as a system of moral obligations, standards, and concerns
3
, but inevitably such under-
standings are rooted in a social context and with it, the shifting sands of opinion. This is matched by evolving
understandings of responsibility within criminal law over time
4
prompting persistent debates about the
connection between responsibility, morality and criminal law, with Tadros noting that responsibility is pre-
dicated on the notion of ‘responsible agents’, that is to say, ‘agents who can develop their lives autonomously
in relation to the set of moral concerns that are central to the criminal law’.
5
Yet, this doctrinal conception—as
Giddens noted above—must also be considered within the framework of the lived experience.
It is within this context that the concept of Criminal Responsibility is being (re)understood in relation to
bodily autonomy in this special issue. Whether in the context of HIV transmission, gender-based violence
or the shifting constructions of consent within sexual relationships, doctrinal law faces a challenge as it
Corresponding author:
Chris Ashford, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST, UK.
E-mail: chris.ashford@northumbria.ac.uk
1. T Giddens, ‘Criminal Responsibility and the Living Self’ (2015) 9, Crim Law and Philos 189.
2. See more generally: V Brooks, Fucking Law: The Search for Her Sexual Ethics (Zero Books, Alresford 2019).
3. RA Duff, ‘Law, Language and Community: Some Preconditions of Criminal Liability’ (1998) 18, OJLS 189.
4. See: N Lacey, In Search of Criminal Responsibility: Ideas, Interests, and Institutions (Oxford University Press, Oxford 2016).
5. V Tadros, Criminal Responsibility (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007) 135.
The Journal of Criminal Law
2020, Vol. 84(6) 523–524
ªThe Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0022018320975514
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