The Private Life of Criminal Law
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Description
Jeannie Suk makes an important contribution to our understanding of criminal law and the regulation of private life. By arguing that the use of criminal protective orders in domestic violence enforcement “deliberately and coercively reorders and controls” private relationships, Suk builds on the work of others who have identified criminal law’s increasing role in shaping and controlling behavior in the public sphere. Of course, Suk’s claim is that criminal law’s tentacles not only have reached out to regulate more public terrain, they have turned inward to regulate the private sphere as well. This move, Suk makes clear, is wholly at odds with an inherited legal narrative that denotes marriage, family, and the home as “private,” and therefore insulated from criminal regulation. I would argue, however, that criminal law’s regulation of private relationships is not a new development. Certainly, criminal law has resisted intervening in the home, as the history of domestic violence enforcement makes evident. However, despite this resistance, criminal law has been an important force in defining and regulating the content of private life. As I describe below, criminal law has worked in tandem with family law to police the normative contours of marriage and intimate life. With this history in mind, the developments that Suk identifies are even more troubling because they suggest that criminal law is moving beyond its already quite significant role in structuring the parameters of lawful intimacy to directly regulate within the private sphere.
Source Publication
Criminal Law Conversations
Source Editors/Authors
Paul H. Robinson, Stephen P. Garvey, Kimberley Kessler Ferzan
Publication Date
2009
Recommended Citation
Murray, Melissa, "The Private Life of Criminal Law" (2009). Faculty Chapters. 1974.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1974
