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The Ironies of Helping: Social Interventions and Executable Subjects
Author(s) -
Dunn Kerry,
Kaplan Paul J.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
law and society review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.867
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1540-5893
pISSN - 0023-9216
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-5893.2009.00375.x
Subject(s) - individualism , sociology , context (archaeology) , subject (documents) , hegemony , law , punishment (psychology) , executable , social psychology , political science , psychology , politics , paleontology , library science , computer science , biology , operating system
Law and society scholars have theorized about the link between capital punishment and the hegemony of individualism, but few offer empirical investigations to illustrate how individualism makes capital punishment possible (and vice versa) in the contemporary United States. In order to fill this gap, we analyze the legal and human service records that were compiled in the construction of one executable subject, Daniel Farnsworth. Using a critical discourse approach, we look at what was said and not said about Daniel in the records created by various helping agencies. In our analysis, we demonstrate how the helping agencies involved in Daniel's life repeatedly relied on an individuating psychological paradigm that led them to produce decontextualized catalogs of his actions and characteristics. Next, we illustrate how these pathologizing accounts were, ironically, later invoked in court in the name of preserving his life. Finally, we explain how “helping” discourses, along with the rules that regulate capital defense practice, straightjacket defense attorneys into reinforcing individualism in this context.