NCJ Number
240161
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 52 Issue: 5 Dated: September 2012 Pages: 932-952
Date Published
September 2012
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This article discusses the shift in U.S. criminal justice policy of qualifying the automobile as a dangerous instrument which allows prosecutors to charge individuals with gross negligent homicide as opposed to ordinary negligent homicide.
Abstract
Qualifying the automobile as a dangerous instrument is linked to the 'responsibilization' and the criminalization of individual negligent drivers in the United States. One case - State v. Fitzgerald (1978) - is selected to illustrate this particular process. The use of the dangerous instrument argument lowers the threshold of criminal liability from gross to ordinary negligence and offers judicial ground to increase the degree of culpability for negligent homicide. The author's argument is twofold. First, the author claims that the criminalization of negligent driving points to a process whereby the motor vehicle and the negligent driver co-constitute one another. Second, the author contends that criminalizing negligent driving is related to the emergence of a specific class of risks: circumstantial risks. The author concludes by pushing for a Tardian turn in criminology. (Published Abstract)