The Dual Embodiment Problem at the Medico-Legal Borderland

• In Event: Crime, Law and Deviance Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 2: Technology and the Criminal Justice System

Abstract

The rise of criminalization has blurred boundaries between fields. Scholars have found that technology use is a key catalyst. While most research on how enforcement technology transforms work focuses on a single set of workers and a single technology, we compare cases to theorize broader mechanisms at play. We develop the “dual embodiment framework” to capture how discordant technologies (those designed for one field but used in another) affect workers’ behavior at the medico-legal borderland. Workers armed with discordant technologies face a dual embodiment problem in which they attempt to enact multiple, conflicting roles at once. Workers’ strategies for addressing this challenge affects client treatment. We identify three factors that shape how workers use technology on clients: 1) origin: Whether the technology was invited into the field by workers or imposed on them by external forces; 2) utility: Whether the technology is intended to help or punish clients; 3) alignment: Whether the workers’ use of the technology aligns or conflicts with their field’s core logics. We examine four cases: first responders administering naloxone, pharmacists using Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs), police conducting phlebotomy (blood draws), and Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE nurses) using forensic science. In each case, workers use a discordant technology, but with different purposes and different results. Technology imposed on first responders and pharmacists results in ambivalence due to conflicts with their fields’ core logics. Technology invited in by SANE nurses and police phlebotomists results in different behavior and effects on clients given helping versus punishing utilization, respectively. The dual embodiment framework demonstrates key micro-level mechanisms by which discordant technology use fundamentally transforms professional roles and relationships with clients, and reshapes field engagement at the medico-legal borderland.

Authors

• Elizabeth Chiarello, Washington University in St. Louis

• Anne Kathleen Johnson, Washington State University Vancouver