What can we learn from the legal cases of Stephen Lawrence and Louise Woodward? How do the legal system and the media contribute to a collective understanding of class, nation, race and gender? In this book, Siobhan Holohan explores media representations of law and order in the context of notions of multi-culturalism and victim-centred politics. Two high profile cases - the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the US trial of the British au-pair, Louise Woodward - are examined. Holohan argues that the stories built up around Woodward and Lawrence - the organization of public discourse around a sacrificial figure - have contributed to exclusionary patterns of social order. The book offers a perceptive account of what makes some criminal legal cases prone to scrutiny and spectacle and provides a vivid illustration of the presence of power relations in legal decisions. In conclusion, the author draws on the model of the Macpherson report to propose a more inclusive form of social and legal judgement that takes into account social inequalities.
| ISBN: | 9780815398219 |
| Publication date: | 29th November 2017 |
| Author: | Siobhan Holohan |
| Publisher: | Routledge an imprint of Taylor & Francis Inc |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 181 pages |
| Genres: |
Private international law and conflict of laws |