George and Margaret Barrock Lecture on Criminal Law

Description

SOCIALIZING THE SUBJECT OF CRIMINAL LAW? CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY AND THE PURPOSES OF CRIMINALIZATION

Nicola Lacey
London School of Economics
School Professor of Law, Gender, and Social Policy

Most accounts of criminal responsibility depend on the claim that the features characterizing responsible agents can be clearly distinguished from features of their situation, environment, history, or circumstances—that the latter features, while operating causally on responsible agents in various ways, do not define them as subjects. This lecture will argue that this distinction is more problematic than it at first appears. Cases where "implicit bias" or "miscognition" shaped by environment or socialization affects the judgment of the individual subject pose a real challenge to the very concept of responsibility on which legal discourse depends—and thus to the role of criminalization as we generally conceive it. The clue to meeting this challenge, Professor Lacey will argue, is to recognize that the criteria for criminal responsibility must be articulated with an understanding of the role and functions of criminal law. This in turn underlines an important distinction between responsibility in legal and in moral contexts.