Shifting The Blame: How Victimization Became a Criminal Defense (Economy; 21)
Saundra Westervelt
More than just a study of legal history, Shifting the Blame looks at the "abuse excuse" defense as an indicator of broad social change in cultural understandings of victimization, responsibility, and womanhood. The introduction of victimization as an exculpatory condition within the context of a criminal defense tells the story of a society that has accepted victimization as a new way of explaining and excusing misbehavior.
Through case law analysis, the book documents the initial development of the strategy in three different types of cases in the 1970s - "rotten social background", brainwashing, and battered women's self-defense cases. Since its initial ... Read more
Saundra D. Westervelt is an assistant professor in the Sociology Department at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
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