ABSTRACT
Thestoryaboutdeterminatesentencing,asitiscurrentlytold, hasbeenwrittenbybothliberalsandconservativesoverthepast twodecades.Determinatesentencinglegislationhastakenseveral formsbuttypicallyconsistsoflegislatedminimum,maximum,and/ orfixedsentencesforsomeoralloffenses.1Despiteprofounddifferencesinthegoalsthattheythoughtdeterminatesentencingwould achieve,liberalsandconservativesholdacommonsetofassumptionscriticallyimportantinshapingthenarrativeaboutsentencing thatcurrentlydominatesthepoliticallandscape.InthisarticleI examinetheseassumptionsinanefforttotellanewstoryabout determinatesentencing.Thestorythatunfoldshererevealsthat theunderstandingofsentencingthathasguidedreforminthepast
last decade has substantially influenced the work of many disciplines. However, the implications of these theoretical developments for criminological scholarship and criminal justice policy have been underdeveloped. 2 Of course, feminist and postmodern perspectives are quite distinct from one another, and debates and disagreements among scholars working within these perspectives are common (see Hennessy 1993; Lather 1991; Nicholson 1990; Singer 1992). Unfortunately "there is no shorthand way to characterize these differences-nor could such an account be sufficiently totalized so as to do justice to the range of relationships between feminist and postmodern enterprises" (Singer 1992:470). Nevertheless, these perspectives have several conceptual tools in common for analyzing social life. 3 The most important of these, for the purpose
ofthisarticle,istheuseof"storytelling"asametaphorforthesocialconstructionofreality.4Dischdescribesthevalueofstorytellinginthisway:
Storytellingbothsituatesourtheoriesintheexperiences fromwhichtheycameandengagesanaudienceinadifferentkindofcriticalthinkingthananargumentdoes.A storycanrepresentadilemmaascontingentandunprecedentedandpositionitsaudiencetothinkfromwithinthat dilemma.Itinvites...situatedcriticalthinking. (1994:110)
Forfeminists,storytellingisstrategicallyusefulbecauseitcreates thepossibilityofbeingheardbyusingastyleofspeakingandwritingthatcontradictsconventionalassumptions.Forpostmodern theorists,thenarrativeformisvaluedbecauseitundermines metanarrativesorattemptstogenerateuniversalizedtruthclaims abouttheworld(Lyotard1979).Forproponentsofbothperspectives,storytellingisamethodologyforcritiquingsocialtheoryand thesocialworld-thatis,forcritiquingotherstories.
