Greenwood-Reeves, J. and Ellwood, R. (2024) ‘On a knife's edge’: medical, police, and legal responses to self-harming protesters. Journal of Law and Society, 51 (4). pp. 491-512. ISSN 0263-323X
Abstract
Traditional liberal democratic theories of protest can readily account for protest violence against others or their property, and are quick to denounce and criminalize such actions. However, protests that involve self-harm are harder to frame; they neither engage the harm principle, nor threaten a sovereign state of ostensible peace. Under liberal legalism, capacitous and consenting protesters should not have their rights of expression interfered with in such cases. However, in England and Wales, legal responses to self-harming violence nevertheless emerge, not necessarily within a public order framework, but through a risk-averse, medicalized lens. Co-authored by a legal academic and a practising psychiatrist, this article argues that mental health practitioners, the police, and the courts engage in a ‘paternalistic pivot’ in self-harming protest cases, which undermines human rights protections that are ordinarily afforded to protesters who are not causing a threat to others or their property.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Law (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 19 Jul 2024 10:08 |
Last Modified: | 28 Nov 2024 11:26 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/jols.12506 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:214934 |