Rape and the Criminal Trial Reconceptualising the Courtroom as an Affective Assemblage

This book explores the shortcomings of the criminal justice system’s response to sexual violence. Despite a plethora of legal and policy reforms, concerns remain regarding the conviction rates for rape and the extent to which cases fall out of the system. Ample research has highlighted the ongoing impact of ‘rape myths’ and the presence of an ‘implementation gap’ whereby policies, provisions and measures — proposed in order to improve the system’s response — are frequently not brought into practice, nor utilised as expected. Rape and the Criminal Trial proposes a move beyond representational theory and towards New Materialism and affects, a school of thought which emphasises the importance of embodiment and the ontological intensive regime as necessary in order to generate radical new approaches for understanding this problematic status quo, and in order to move forward to the production of more effective solutions. 

1. Introduction.- 2. Mapping the Theory and the Conviction Rate Attractor.- 3. Courtroom Expressions: The Intermingling of the Semiotic and Material Regimes.- 4. Courtroom Performances: Drama, but not Representational Drama.- 5. Deleuze’s Materialist Philosophy of Affect and Sense.- 6. Complexity Theory, Deleuze and Guattari’s Affective Assemblage Theory and the Courtroom as Affective Assemblage.- 7. Conclusion: Techniques of Affect and Adaptive Management.

Anna Carline is Associate Professor in Law at the University of Leicester, UK.