Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2022
ISSN
0017-8322
Publisher
University of California Hastings College of Law
Language
en-US
Abstract
This Article explores the relationship between two normative systems in modern society: “cancel culture” and criminal justice. It argues that cancel culture—a ubiquitous phenomenon in contemporary life—may rectify deficiencies of over- and under-enforcement in the U.S. criminal justice system. However, the downsides of cancel culture’s structure—imprecise factfinding, potentially disproportionate sanctions leading to collateral consequences, a “thin” conception of the wrongdoer as beyond rehabilitation, and a broader cultural anxiety that “chills” certain human conduct—reflect problematic U.S. punitive impulses that characterize our era of mass incarceration. This Article thus argues that social media reform proposals obscure a deeper necessity: transcendence of blame through criminal justice reform and, ultimately, collective emphasis on reintegration after human wrongdoing.
Recommended Citation
Steven A. Koh,
“Cancel Culture” and Criminal Justice
,
in
74
Hastings Law Journal
79
(2022).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3372
