Judging the offender

Abstract

As in many jurisdictions, such as the US and England and Wales, there has been a growing emphasis in the French criminal justice system on quantitative rather than qualitative aspects of judicial decision-making and a power shift from judges to public prosecutors, both manifestations of increased bureaucratisation. Yet, the aim of the criminal justice process in French criminal justice culture has traditionally been understood more widely than in Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions as not only judging the offender’s conduct but also their personality and life history. Connected to the legal principle of the individualisation of sentences, this broader objective has been cogently linked to French political culture and the role of the citizen and their relationship with the state. Based on my direct observations and interviews in a prosecutors’ office in France, this chapter explores whether this aspect of legal culture could help resist the growing bureaucratisation of French criminal justice. I argue that the broader aim of the French criminal justice system of rehabilitating defendants as citizens of the state fails to impede the McDonaldization of French criminal justice which manifests itself in the standardisation and automation of prosecutorial decision-making. However, it plays an important role in supporting the self-legitimacy of criminal justice professionals, such as public prosecutors.