Chapter 24
In: Sights, Sounds, and Sensibilities of Atrocity Prosecutions
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Abstract
Criminal law that prosecutes atrocity crimes is more likely than other law to be in the business of prosecuting aged defendants. Against the backdrop of studies of the harmful effects of the ‘cultural representation’ of older individuals in film and other media, this chapter considers the contribution of trials to this cultural representation. Atrocity trials are yet another representational mode through which the social perception of older individuals as invisible, feeble, and incapacitated can either be reinforced or rehabilitated in ways that are significant to the lived experiences of the contemporaneous older population. This argument has implications regarding decisions of who to prosecute and how, based on moral considerations of the ‘look’, ‘feel’, and ‘sound’ of atrocity trials that prosecute individuals well after the crimes were committed.