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Abstract
Shaming is a mechanism theorists have highlighted as an important means of social control. However, this concept and the ways in which officials use shame in the context of formal social control is not easily studied. Interviews with a Southern California juvenile court judge and observations of his interactions with youths on probation are used to illustrate the reflexive nature of social control interactions. This ethnographic study illustrates how the emotion of shame is used to manage delinquent and defiant young people in a justice setting. A nuanced analysis of the various strategies used by this juvenile court judge to evoke signs of remorse, accountability, and deference from young offenders is provided. Such an investigation informs theoretical perspectives on how social control is employed, highlights the important role of power in the interactions, and provides a better understanding of theoretical concepts, such as reintegration and stigmatization.
Notes
1. For a detailed review and discussion of theories explaining and describing notions of shame, see Scheff (Citation2000).
2. For example, the Gacaca justice process in Rwanda is an example of a reintegrative process, where officials attempt to hold perpetrators of the 1994 mass murders accountable for their actions through confessions. At the same time officials proposed to reintegrate lower level perpetrators if they plead to their offenses. In these instances offenders would be released to the community. The stated aim is both the healing of the victims and the offenders (Tiemessen, Citation2004). On the other hand, an example of a stigmatizing process is the United States law requiring convicted sex offenders – even after having served time being incarcerated – to notify law enforcement agencies where and when they move their residences. The first process labels the action of the offender as being bad, but attempts to bring the offender back into the community. The later process ostracizes the offender, labeling the person as inherently bad, and limits his or her interaction with community members.
3. All names are pseudonyms used to protect the identity of the county under study as well as the individuals interviewed and observed.
4. 2000 census data for the zip code of the courthouse indicates that the community is comprised of approximately 75% people of color (primarily Latino and African‐American). In terms of other demographic characteristics, 38% of the population is below the poverty level, 53% of the families are led by women, and 72% of the families in the surrounding community received supplemental security income and/or public assistance or social security income in 1999. The average median income for 1999 was $24,207.
5. For the purpose of the study I will use ‘judge’ interchangeably with ‘commissioner’ as all other court officials do within the setting observed. Technically, a judge is either appointed by the Governor or elected by the constituency to serve for six years. A commissioner is selected or appointed by other judges. The court staff at all of the courthouses in this county regularly use the terms judge and commissioner interchangeably.
6. Information received in interview with Commissioner Carmichael.
7. This is the case unless a minor is petitioned with a serious offense where he or she is adjudicated and receives a disposition to the most severe sentence in juvenile court – the Youth Authority, or if the minor is petitioned for transfer to the criminal court by the prosecution.
8. At times during my observations I could not discern the offense for which the youth was originally placed on probation because the act was never discussed.
9. Camp is a term used to refer to secure placement in either a short‐ or long‐term Youth County Probation Camp program.
10. Emerson found in a study of probation officers’ interactions with young people that they often ‘employ a kind of moralizing exhortation as a standard way of relating to delinquents in enforcing rules and controlling behavior’ (Citation1969, p. 222). The officers do this to avoid trouble, to reaffirm their legitimacy and authority, and assume that youths have full control over their lives to avoid future delinquency.
11. A furlough is a period of time after being released from a residential camp probationary program (or some form of incarcerative facility). During this time period if the youth is found to have violated probation or receives a further petition he or she could be sent back to the camp program.
12. To quantify the concept of interdependency, research testing this theory either relies on survey responses indicating the level of importance either a parent or peer shares with the subject (Zhang & Zhang, Citation2004), or explores the social networks individuals rely on for various crises (Tittle, Bratton, & Gertz, Citation2003).
13. Legally, to have other juveniles in the courtroom during a hearing for another juvenile is in violation of minors’ confidentiality rights. However, I have observed other judges in this county also having other minors in the courtroom to observe hearings. Many of the public defenders object to this practice outside of the courtroom, but never complain directly to the judge.
14. Anderson (Citation1990; Citation1999) suggests that a code of the street has emerged as a cultural adaptation to the failure of public institutions (police, justice system, education) within impoverished inner‐city communities. As a result an oppositional culture to mainstream values (such as not selling or using drugs, participating in street gangs, or writing graffiti) surrounding issues of respect guides the behavior of some inner‐city young people.
15. An Individualized Education Program (IEP) is a California assessment tool to determine if children have special education needs.
16. It is important to remember that judicial norms and interactional styles are variable. The judge enforces the norms of his courtroom as well as laws. The ‘shaming’ process, or the manner in which he displays social control (argumentative, stern voice, yelling) and exerts social control over youths (ranging from uncomfortable interactions, admonishment, juvenile hall placement, furlough revocation, or disposition to camp or the Youth Authority) are a consequence of both his or her working constraints (bed availability, time left for incarceration under conviction) and methods of communication.
17. For example, a youth not attending school because he had to endure harassment and violence by gang members along his route was told jokingly by Carmichael to put a number on his back and act like he was running a marathon through the neighborhood. The judge laughed, noting that no one would bother him because they would think he was crazy. Ironically, this judge could not do anything for this youth – could not address the violence or poverty in his community ‐ but could only mandate that he attend school regularly despite the violent conditions that surrounded him.
18. This finding is similar to Jacobs’s (Citation1990) work investigating probation officers’ management of juvenile offenders: ‘Continually thrown back on their own personal resources in managing systematic casework dilemmas, probation officers resort to manipulative strategies of artifice and special pleading in attempting to enforce civic obligations and entitlements’ (p. 283). Similarly, the negotiation between the judge and the youth over social control occurred within the confines of such structural limitations as dysfunctional or absent parents, single parents having conflicting job and school schedules, and school systems that do not monitor or engage their students.
19. An important side note is to recognize that rehabilitation is not reintegration – just because a youth is removed from his or her family, school and/or community, and people try to teach them what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’, it does not mean that attempts are made to reintegrate these offenders back into their family, school, and/or community.
20. The exception would be Aaron Kupchik’s (Citation2004, Citation2006) work that examines the processing of statutorily excluded young people in New York, who are processed in a specialized criminal court that only processes juvenile offenders. However, Kupchik does not focus on a juvenile court, rather a criminal court that is designed especially to manage transferred or judicially excluded chronological‐minors (those 18 years or younger).
