Addiction veridiction: gendering agency in legal mobilisations of addiction discourse

This paper explores the question of whether and in what ways the law and legal processes work to stabilise addiction as a health problem or ‘disease’. In undertaking this analysis, we also explore the associated gender implications of these practices and the means through which legal processes that stabilise addiction simultaneously stabilise gender. Using the work of science and technologies scholar Bruno Latour, in particular his anthropological analysis of scientific and legal ‘modes of existence’, we explore legal processes of what he calls ‘veridiction’ – or the specific processes by which law distinguishes truth from falsity – associated with addiction. We focus on processes that are largely hidden from public view and as such receive little scrutiny, but through which the meaning of addiction as a disease is secured. Our aim is to consider the role of legal negotiations in establishing agreed facts, and to explore lawyers’ understanding of these processes. We argue that although in public discourse judges are ascribed the status of the law’s key decision-making figures, lawyers’ accounts do not necessarily support this view. Instead, their accounts of the judicial process foreground their own and other lawyers’ role in decisions about addiction, despite an absence of training or education in the area. We also note that lawyers’ accounts suggest little independent oversight – even from judges – of the work lawyers do in stabilising addiction ‘facts’. Based on these observations, we consider the ways such processes of stabilisation impact on women in the legal system whose lives are in some way affected by discourses of addiction as a disease. We argue that legal practices of veridiction are centrally implicated in the making of both gender and health and that elements of these processes, which are not often publicly visible or subjected to scrutiny, require more analysis

The addict as victim: Producing the 'problem' of addiction in Australian victims of crime compensation laws

Background: Much academic scholarship has explored drug use and ‘addiction’ in the criminal justice system. Methods: This paper explores what happens when ‘addicts’ are victims, through an analysis of victims of crime compensation case law within the state of Victoria, Australia. Results: We argue that the law enacts a set of unexamined assumptions about the ‘problem’ of addiction, including the assumption that it is incompatible to be both addict and victim. However, courts reconcile this ‘dilemma’ by explaining addiction as an ‘effect’ of trauma, violence or abuse, a seemingly sympathetic rendering of addiction. Although this appears to represent a less stigmatising approach than found in the criminal law, we argue that these processes actually produce new challenges for people who use drugs and ‘addicts’, and that these may be counter to the stated aims and objectives of crimes compensation law. We argue that even legal systems with an explicitly remedial rationale have the potential to generate harms, creating those who use drugs and ‘addicts’ as pathological in certain ways and thereby undermining their claims to citizenship. Our analysis is underpinned by a critical approach to the constitution of social problems based on the work of Carol Bacchi. Conclusion: Although the focus is on Australian law, the arguments we develop in this paper are likely to resonate beyond the specific jurisdiction reviewed here, and raise questions about the mutually interdependent role of law and policy in compounding the stigmatisation and marginalisation of people who use drugs and drug ‘addicts’

Emergent publics of alcohol and other drug policymaking

Alcohol and other drug (AOD) policy is developed within complex networks of social, economic, and political forces. One of the key ideas informing this development is that of the ‘public’ of AOD problems and policy solutions. To date, however, little scholarly attention has been paid to notions of the public in AOD policymaking. Precisely how are publics articulated by those tasked with policy development and implementation? In this article, we explore this question in detail. We analyze 60 qualitative interviews with Australian and Canadian AOD policymakers and service providers, arguing that publics figure in these interviews as pre-existing groups that must be managed – contained or educated – to allow policy to proceed. Drawing on Michael Warner’s work, we argue that publics should be understood instead as made in policy processes rather than as preceding them, and we conclude by reframing publics as emergent collectivities of interest. In closing, we briefly scrutinize the widely accepted model of good policy development, that of ‘consultation,’ arguing that, if publics are to be understood as emergent, and therefore policy’s opportunities as more open than is often suggested, a different figure – here that of ‘conference’ is tentatively suggested – may be required

The Definition and Significance of Intoxication in Australian Criminal Law: A Case Study of Queensland’s Safe Night out Legislation

Australian criminal law is being actively reconfigured in an effort to produce a more effective response to the problem of alcohol-related violence. This article uses the Safe Night Out Legislation Amendment Act 2014 (Qld) as a case study for two purposes: i) to introduce a set of conceptual tools and typologies that can be used to investigate the relationship between ‘intoxication’ and criminal law; and ii) to raise a number of concerns about how the effects of alcohol and other drugs are implicated in laws governing police powers, criminal responsibility and punishment. We draw attention to the different and sometimes inconsistent ways in which significance is attached to evidence of the consumption of alcohol and other drugs, as well as to variations and ambiguities in how legislation attempts to capture the degree of impairment or effects that are regarded as warranting the attachment of criminal law significance

Criminal law and the effects of alcohol and other drugs: a national study of the significance of intoxication in Australian legislation

Recent years have seen intense media scrutiny, concerted policy discussion and significant law reform on the relationship between the consumption of alcohol (and other drugs) and the commission of criminal offences. Much of the debate has been dominated by the view that, particularly for crimes of violence, the state of \u27intoxication\u27 produced by the consumption of alcohol and other drugs (\u27AOD\u27) should be regarded as an aggravating factor that adds to the seriousness of the harm done and warrants additional punishment. Some recent legislative reform measures have unambiguously embraced this position. As important as it is, treating intoxication as an aggravating factor is, in fact, only one of the ways in which Australian criminal law attaches significance to AOD consumption. We are currently undertaking a large-scale study of the \u27knowledges\u27 and assumptions about the relationship between intoxication and violence (and other offending and anti-social behaviours) that are reflected in Australian criminal laws. Our project compares legislative and judicial knowledges on \u27intoxication\u27 with scientific and social scientific expert knowledges on the effects of AOD, and the relationship between AOD consumption and violence and other criminal offending. It maps and assesses the multiple ways in which Australian criminal laws attach significance to the attribute of intoxication, and investigates the effects these approaches may have in practice. We aim to facilitate enhanced clarity, consistency and integrity in laws that attach penal significance to the fact of a person\u27s intoxication, and improve the criminal law\u27s capacity to meet the needs of the community with respect to the attribution of criminal responsibility for AOD-related anti-social behaviour, harms and risks

Exploring the Role of Emotions in Clinical Legal Education: Inquiry and Results from an International Workshop for Legal Educators

Clinical legal education provides a unique opportunity to engage with emotions. This article describes and reflects on an interactive workshop that examined the nature, meaning and significance of emotions in clinical legal education. Through a variety of incorporated staged activities, employing the teaching methods of scaffolding as well as backward design, participants explored aspects of the emotional dimensions of the relationships between clinical teachers/supervisors and their students, along with the relationship between students and their clients. Participants extracted ideas for how educators should approach emotions when they surface in legal clinics. This article provides a detailed overview regarding the rationale for the workshop, followed by a summary of the workshop plans and steps, before detailing key observations and lessons from the workshop