Gender Matters! Socio-Legal Studies, Courts-Martial, and the US Military

Abstract

As a sociologist and social theorist, my job in both the research and courtroom aspects of courts-martial is to make sense of the situation from a social scientific perspective and through considerations of context. This means that what I see as important are social and cultural environments and how individuals exist within and as a part of these contexts. I draw from my experiences in both roles, as a researcher and consultant, and during two of the Abu Ghraib courts-martial trials—those of Lynndie England and Sabrina Harman. I put into conversation the law with sociology and social theory, so as to create an additional possibility for understanding the behaviors of individuals as interacting within and through contexts. Additionally, I narrow this focus to incorporate gender and show how this kind of analysis is important to legal studies.

Indeed, this analysis becomes an important means for understanding the law precisely as it focuses on the US military, and an analysis of command responsibility and “command climate,” which takes place on a group level. In this way, the soldier’s accused crime is put into conversation with the larger command structure (considering power permutations and social context) as a means for understanding the deviance that took place. The doctrine of command responsibility further allows for the recognition of the connectedness between actors within contexts in terms of hierarchy, responsibility, and the law. Nonetheless, many times it is only an individual who is charged for a crime, whereby the focus for an analysis of command responsibility is overlooked.