The language of parole: sex offenders’ discourse strategy use in Indeterminate Sentence Review Board hearings

Abstract

Discourse analysis of 19 video-recorded Indeterminate Sentence Review Board hearings in the State of Washington Department of Corrections revealed that sex offenders used 45 distinct linguistic strategies. We found that discourse strategy use among offenders who were subsequently paroled differed from those offenders who were subsequently not paroled. Offenders who were subsequently paroled used apology, withholding information, and topic management strategies; in contrast, offenders who were not subsequently paroled used minimization, denial, rejecting the Parole Board’s concern, courtesies, repair, self-repair and other repair, and use of “I mean” as turn-grabbing and forewarning strategies.

Keywords:

• forensic linguistics
• discourse analysis
• linguistic strategy
• sex offenders
• parole hearings

Acknowledgements

We are eternally grateful for the support of our institutions and of our colleagues. We give special thanks to Jeremy Travis, President of John Jay College of Criminal Justice/CUNY, who provided his contacts as well as steady support for the study. His 2005 book “But They All Come Back: Facing the Challenges of Prisoner Reentry” was the seed that was planted for this study. We owe a debt of gratitude to a number of people in the State of Washington. To the Honorable Jeralita “Jeri” P. Costa, Chair of the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board, without whose support the study could not have been realized. To the two other members of Ms. Costa’s committee, the Honorable Julia Garrat and Mr. Dennis Thout. To Ms. Anmarie Aylward, Chair of the Research Review Committee of the Department of Corrections of the State of Washington, who approved the research project. Finally, to Ms. Barbara Manning who was also invaluable coordinating all this paper work back and forth with kindness and patience. Last but not least, special thanks to those who assisted us in the data analysis phase of the study. To our statistician Dr. Brett Stoudt for his enormous talent with numbers providing us with helpful and clear tables as well as interpreting them when needed. To Mr. Gerasimos Anzoulatos who did the time-consuming transcription of the tapes with endless patience and accuracy. To Ms. Tallulah Micah, a student in Professor Cochran’s Forensic Linguistics class, who sorted data and provided us with insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.