Between standard, silence and exception: How texts construct defendants as persons in Danish pre-sentence reports

Abstract

This article analyses how the Danish penal system uses pre-sentence reports to constitute defendants as persons in relation to their criminal acts. Based on ethnographic fieldwork within the Danish Probation Service and County Courts, the present study follows the ‘career’ of these documents and shows how meaning is created through the complex interaction between the texts and the legal actors. A critical discourse analysis of the drafting of the reports and their interpretation by judges demonstrates how social knowledge about the defendant is conveyed to legal actors and used by them in the sentencing process. This happens through the interplay among standardized information, exceptional hints and omission of important details. These discursive strategies and the way they constitute meaning may have far-reaching consequences for defendants and their sentences.