Responsibilisation of Perpetrators of Domestic Violence in Relation to Their Defence Strategies Appealing Against Sentence

Perpetrators of domestic violence who are sentenced to complete a treatment program develop a narrative that adjusts the social norms of violence and their judicial status. In order to understand this process, the article examines the variation in relation to how accountability is dealt with in the training courses and the ways in which it is evaluated. The representations of the perpetrators are structured by techniques of neutralization by which they express their relationship to violence. Their interpretation of criminal procedure is guided by a perception of gender and class relations which provokes forms of adherence and contestation to justice and influences their representations of violence.