”We can’t just do it any which way” – Objectivity Work among Swedish Prosecutors

Katarina Jacobsson

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.4.1.03

Authors

Katarina Jacobsson Lund University, Sweden

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.4.1.03

Keywords:

Objectivity work, Prosecutors, Accounts, Ethnomethodology, Constructionism, Sweden

Abstract

Objectivity is a principle widely acknowledged and honoured in contemporary society. Rather than treating objectivity as an a priori defined category to be tested empirically, I refer to the construction of objectivity as it is accomplished in practice as “objectivity work” and consider how Swedish prosecutors in interviews make and communicatively realize (i.e. “make real”) its claims. In analyzing two facets of objectivity work – maintaining objectivity and responses to objectivity violations – seven mechanisms are identified: appeals to (1) regulation, (2) duty, and (3) professionalism; responses to violations by (4) incantations of objectivity, (5) corrections, (6) proclamation by contrast, and (7) appeals to human fallibility. Directions for future research emphasize cross-cultural and crossoccupational comparisons, not only within the judiciary as objectivity is of a general concern in any area where disinterested truths are claimed. The concept of objectivity work allows one to study how various actors bring principle into everyday life.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Katarina Jacobsson, Lund University, Sweden

Katarina Jacobsson is an Assistant Professor of sociology at the University of Lund (Department of Social Work). Interested in social control, rhetoric, narrative practices, and the sociology of deviance, she has studied ‘the world of the deaf’, and the Swedish legal system and its handling of cases of domestic violence and corruption. The concept of “objectivity work” is further examined in her present qualitative research project on medical decision-making.

References

Adelswärd, Viveka (1989) ”Defendants’ Interpretations of Encouragements in Court: The Construction of Meaning in an Institutional Context.” Journal of Pragmatics 13:741-749. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(89)90076-3

Adelswärd, Viveka, Karin Aronsson and Per Linell (1988) “Discourse of blame. Courtroom construction of social reality from the perspective of the defendant.” Semiotica 71:261-284. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.1988.71.3-4.261

Akerström, Malin, Katarina Jacobsson and David Wästerfors (2003) ”Reanalysis of Previously Collected Material.” Pp. 344-357 in Qualitative Research Practice, edited by C. Seale, G. Gobo, J. F. Gubrium, and D. Silverman. London: Sage.

Anleu, Sharyn Roach and Kathy Mack (2005) “Magistrates’ Everyday Work and Emotional Labour.” Journal of Law and Society 32(4): 590-614. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6478.2005.00339.x

Atkinson, Maxwell J. and Paul Drew (1979) Order in Court. The Organisation of Verbal Interaction in Judicial Settings. London: The MacMillan Press.

Atkinson, Maxwell, J. (1992) ”Displaying Neutrality: Formal Aspects of Informal Court Proceedings.” Pp. 199-211 in Talk at Work. Interaction in Institutional Settings, edited by P. Drew and J. Heritage. Cambridge: University Press.

Atkinson, Paul (1992) ”The Ethnography of a Medical Setting: Reading, Writing and Rhetoric.” Qualitative Health Research 2 (4):451-474. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/104973239200200406

Bandes, Susan, A. editor (1999) The passions of law. New York: New York University Press.

Baumgartner, M. P. (1994) ”The Myth of Discretion.” Pp. 129-162 in The Uses of Discretion, edited by K. Hawkins. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Beagan, Brenda, L. (2000) “Neutralizing differences: producing neutral doctors for (almost) neutral patients.” Social Science & Medicine 51:1253-1265. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-9536(00)00043-5

Berger, Peter and Thomas Luckmann (1966) The Social Construction of Reality. London: Penguin Books.

Bergmann, Jörg R. (1998) ”Introduction: Morality in Discourse.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 31 (3-4):279-294. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.1998.9683594

Billig, Michael (1996) Arguing and Thinking. A Rhetorical Approach to Social Psychology. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Clayman, Steven E. (1992) ”Footing in the Achievement of Neutrality: the Case of News- Interview Discourse.” Pp. 163-198 in Talk at Work. Interaction in Institutional Settings, edited by P. Drew and J. Heritage. Cambridge: University Press.

Conley, John M. and William M O’Barr (1990) Rules Versus Relationships. The Ethnography of Legal Discourse. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Diesen, Christian, Claes Lernestedt, Torun Lindholm and Tove Pettersson (2005) Likhet inför lagen. Stockholm: Natur och kultur.

Emerson, Robert M. and Blair Paley (1994) ”Organizational Horizons and Complaint Filing.” Pp. 231-248 in The Uses of Discretion, edited by K. Hawkins. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Eriksson, Katarina (1995) “Motsträvighet som anomali i rättsväsendet – poliser och åklagare om kvinnomisshandel.” SOU 1995:60, del B. Kvinnofrid – huvudbetänkande från Kvinnovåldskommissionen.

Free, Marvin D. (2002) ”Race and Presentencing Decisions in the United States: A Summary and Critique of the Research.” Criminal Justice Review 27 (2):203-226. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/073401680202700202

Frohmann, Lisa (1997) ”Convictability and Discordant Locales: Reproducing Race, Class, and Gender Ideologies in Prosecutorial Decisionmaking.” Law & Society Review 31 (3):531- 555. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3054045

Frohmann, Lisa (1996) ”Hard Cases: Prosecutorial Accounts for Filing Unconvictable Sexual Assault Complaints.” Current Research on Occupations and Professions 9:189-209.

Frohmann, Lisa (1991) ”Discrediting Victims’ Allegations of Sexual Assault: Prosecutorial Accounts of Case Rejections.” Social Problems 38 (2):213-226. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/800530

Garfinkel, Harold (1988) ”Evidence for Locally Produced, Naturally Accountable Phenomena of Order, Logic, Reason, Meaning, Method, etc.” Sociological Theory 6:103-109. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/201918

Harris, Lloyd C. (2002) “The emotional labour of barristers: an exploration of emotional labour by status professionals.” Journal of Management Studies 39 (4): 553-584. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6486.t01-1-00303

Hobbs, Pamela (2003) ”’Is that what we’re here about?’: a Lawyer’s Use of Impression Management in a Closing Argument at Trial.” Discourse and Society 14 (3):273-290. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/09579265030143002

Holsánová, Jana (1998) ”Att byta röst och rädda ansiktet. Citatanvändning i samtal om ’de andra’.” Språk & Stil 8:105-133.

Holstein, James A. (1993) Court-Ordered Insanity: Interpretive Practice and Involuntary Commitment. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.

Holstein, James A. and Gale Miller (2003) “Social Constructionism and Social Problems Work.” Pp. 70-91 in Challenges and Choices: Constructionist Perspectives on Social Problems, edited by J. A. Holstein and G. Miller. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.

Holstein, James A. and Jaber F. Gubrium (2000) Constructing the Life Course. 2nd ed. New York: General Hall.

Hughes, Geoffrey (1994) ”The Historical Development of the Register Barrier in Professional Language.” Pp. 37-47 in Text and Talk in Professional Contexts, edited by B-L. Gunnarsson, P. Linell, and B. Nordberg, B. Uppsala: The Swedish Association of Applied Linguistics.

Jacobsson, Katarina (2000) Retoriska strider. Konkurrerande sanningar i dövvärlden. (Diss.) Lund: Palmkrons förlag.

Jacobsson, Katarina (2005) Mutor och moral – motstridiga versioner i svenska rättsfall. Network for Research in Criminology and Deviant Behavior at Lund University. Lund: Department of Sociology.

Jacobsson, Katarina and David Wästerfors (2003) ”På tal om mutor.” Pp. 109-122 in Förebyggande metoder mot ekobrott. En antologi. Rapport 2003:10. Stockholm: Brottsförebyggande rådet.

Karstedt, Susanne (2002) “Emotions and Criminal Justice.” Theoretical Criminology 6(3):299- 317. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/136248060200600304

Katz, Jack (2001) ”From How to Why. On Luminous Description and Causal Inference in Ethnography (Part 1).” Ethnography 2 (4):443-473. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/146613801002004001

Komter, Martha L. (1994) ”Accusations and Defences in Courtroom Interaction.” Discourse & Society 5 (2):165-187. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926594005002002

Lange, Bettina. 2002. “The Emotional Dimension in Legal Regulation.” Journal of Law and Society 29 (1):197-225. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00216

Latour, Bruno (1987) Science in Action. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Leijonhufvud, Madeleine (1996) Etiken i juridiken. Stockholm: Norstedts Juridik.

Linell, Per and Linda Jönsson (1991) “Suspect stories: perspective-setting in an asymmetrical situation.” Pp. 75-100 in Asymmetries in Dialogue, edited by I. Marková and K. Foppa. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Lipsky, Michael (1980) Street-Level Bureaucracy. Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1288305

Lutfey, Karen (2004) “Assessment, Objectivity, and Interaction: The Case of Patient Compliance With Medical Treatment Regimens.” Social Psychology Quarterly 67(4):343- 368. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/019027250406700402

Ma, Yue (2002) ”Prosecutorial Discretion and Plea Bargaining in the United States, France, Germany, and Italy: A Comparative Perspective.” International Criminal Justice Review 12:22-52. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/105756770201200102

Maynard, Douglas W. and John F. Manzo (1993) ”On the Sociology of Justice: Theoretical Notes From an Actual Jury Deliberation.” Sociological Theory 11 (2):171-193. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/202141

Mac Murray, Bruce K. (1988) ”The Nonprosecution of Sexual Abuse and Informal Justice.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 3 (2):197-202. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/088626088003002006

Miller, Gale (1991) Enforcing the Work Ethic: The Rhetoric and Everyday Life in a Work Incentive Program. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Nordqvist, Petra (2003) Med åtskillnad som medel – polisers och åklagares berättelser om mutor. Network for Research in Criminology and Deviant Behavior at Lund University. Lund: Department of Sociology.

Philips, Susan U. (1998) Ideology in the Language of Judges. How Judges Practice Law, Politics, and Courtroom Control. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Potter, Jonathan (1997) “Discourse Analysis as a Way of Analysing Naturally Occurring Talk.” Pp. 145-160 in Qualitative Research. Theory, Method and Practice. Edited by D. Silverman. London: Sage.

Potter, Jonathan (1996) Representing Reality. Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction. London: SAGE. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446222119

Rainville, Gerard (2001) ”An Analysis of Factors Related to Prosecutor Sentencing Preferences.” Criminal Justice Policy Review 12 (4):295-310. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0887403401012004003

Rogers, Linda J. and Edna Erez (1999) “The Contextuality of Objectivity in Sentencing Among Legal Professionals in South Australia.” International Journal of the Sociology of Law 27:267-286. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1006/ijsl.1999.0092

Scott, Marvin B. and Stanford M. Lyman. (1968) ”Accounts.” American Sociological Review 33:46-62. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2092239

Snow, David. A. & Anderson, Leon (1987) “Identity Work Among the Homeless: The Verbal Construction and Avowal of Personal Identities.” The American Journal of Sociology 92 (6): 1336-1371. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/228668

Spohn, Cassia, Dawn Beichner, and Erika Davis-Frenzel (2001) ”Prosecutorial Justification for Sexual Assault Case Rejection: ’Guarding the Gateway to Justice’.” Social Problems 48 (2):206-235. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.2001.48.2.206

Steinberg, Allen (1984) ”From Private Prosecution to Plea Bargaining: Criminal Prosecution, the District Attorney, and American Legal History.” Crime & Delinquency 30 (4):568-592. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128784030004007

TI (2006) “Corruption Perceptions Index.” Transparency International. Available online. Retrieved March 2008 http://www.transparency.org

Wennstam, Katarina (2004) En riktig våldtäktsman: en bok om samhällets syn på våldtäkt. Stockholm: Bonnier.

Wilmot, Keith A. and Cassia Spohn (2004) ”Prosecutorial Discretion and Real-Offense Sentencing: An Analysis of Relevant Conduct Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.” Criminal Justice Policy Review 15 (3):324-343. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0887403403259434