Remorseful or Resigned: Criminal Justice Legitimacy and the Appearance of “Docile” Defendants

Abstract

In monopolizing penal violence, the criminal justice system requires public acceptance, preferably not via coercive force but rather via the recognition of legitimacy that yields voluntary compliance. Nevertheless, under pressure of the demand for efficiency and mass case processing, the modern-day criminal justice system increasingly relies on convenient indicators that promote a superficial image of legitimacy. What follows is the undesirable blindness of the system to its marginalization of defendants. Still, the authorities’ indifference can remain strong so long as defendants appear willingly compliant. Being directly affected by the state’s penal power, defendants’ voluntary expression of repentance and obedience is arguably a strong affirmation of the system’s fairness. Drawing conclusions from observational and interview data regarding the criminal court process in Thailand, this article argues that instead, such visible docility is shaped by systemic pressures that gear defendants towards self-blame and fatalism. Such gearing mechanisms are neither deliberate nor coercive; yet, under their influence, free choice is also elusive. Accordingly, the defendants’ appearance of docility is defensibly induced by the system rather than being utterly voluntary. Although subconsciously produced, defendants’ complicity in their own marginalization powerfully endorses the claimed legitimacy of the proceedings, albeit to the erosion of the due process principle.