International ideals and domestic reality: a qualitative study on Sweden’s pre-trial detention practices
(2015) RÄSK02 20151Department of Sociology of Law
- Abstract
- Sweden is often described as being at the forefront of protecting human rights, but nevertheless Swedish pre-trial detention practices have received criticism from torture committees upholding human rights standards on regional and international levels. This suggests that a discrepancy exists between the legal ideals and the domestic practices. From a sociology of law perspective, the present study aims to further the understanding of why this discrepancy might exist. The methodological approach was two-fold; on one hand by interviewing judges with experience of pre-trial detention hearings, and on the other by using content analysis to examine reports from the torture committees along with the interview data. By applying Bourdieu’s... (More)
- Sweden is often described as being at the forefront of protecting human rights, but nevertheless Swedish pre-trial detention practices have received criticism from torture committees upholding human rights standards on regional and international levels. This suggests that a discrepancy exists between the legal ideals and the domestic practices. From a sociology of law perspective, the present study aims to further the understanding of why this discrepancy might exist. The methodological approach was two-fold; on one hand by interviewing judges with experience of pre-trial detention hearings, and on the other by using content analysis to examine reports from the torture committees along with the interview data. By applying Bourdieu’s framework and complementing these analytical tools with Cohen’s concepts on denial, the committees and the judges could be understood as agents in a legal field, engaged in a struggle for the right to determine the law. As the newer agents, the committees reject some of the current structures in the field and aim for gaining more dominant positions, whilst the judges defend their established positions and try to maintain their legitimacy, with support from their habitus. This study also highlights the close ties between the legal field and the field of state power, which might offer an understanding of the juridical accounts describing a position where judges are bound by the legal norms, resulting in domestic practices that do not appear to fulfill international human rights ideals. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/5472557
- author
- Jönsson, Elin LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- RÄSK02 20151
- year
- 2015
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- field, habitus, pre-trial detention, human rights, Cohen, Bourdieu
- language
- English
- id
- 5472557
- date added to LUP
- 2015-06-25 11:57:03
- date last changed
- 2015-06-25 11:57:03
@misc{5472557,
abstract = {{Sweden is often described as being at the forefront of protecting human rights, but nevertheless Swedish pre-trial detention practices have received criticism from torture committees upholding human rights standards on regional and international levels. This suggests that a discrepancy exists between the legal ideals and the domestic practices. From a sociology of law perspective, the present study aims to further the understanding of why this discrepancy might exist. The methodological approach was two-fold; on one hand by interviewing judges with experience of pre-trial detention hearings, and on the other by using content analysis to examine reports from the torture committees along with the interview data. By applying Bourdieu’s framework and complementing these analytical tools with Cohen’s concepts on denial, the committees and the judges could be understood as agents in a legal field, engaged in a struggle for the right to determine the law. As the newer agents, the committees reject some of the current structures in the field and aim for gaining more dominant positions, whilst the judges defend their established positions and try to maintain their legitimacy, with support from their habitus. This study also highlights the close ties between the legal field and the field of state power, which might offer an understanding of the juridical accounts describing a position where judges are bound by the legal norms, resulting in domestic practices that do not appear to fulfill international human rights ideals.}},
author = {{Jönsson, Elin}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{International ideals and domestic reality: a qualitative study on Sweden’s pre-trial detention practices}},
year = {{2015}},
}