Description
This paper explores how scandalisation works, through a case of its failure. In 2021, academics collaborated with the NGO Medact to expose a new counterterrorism program which covertly obtains medical records and can detain those deemed a risk to the public in psychiatric hospitals. Publication, media appearances and collaboration with large campaign organisations all failed to scandalise the program.
The paper utilises Timothy Pachirat’s work on the Politics of Sight to analyse how the compartmentalisation of violence within professional silos obscures the harms which result from collaboration between psychologists and the security services; alongside the constitutive role played by the legal architecture in the field of scandalisation. Compartmentalisation within the Hubs precludes the recognition of their violence by practitioners and obscures the role played by security agencies in medical detention decisions. Even those detained do not know of the involvement of Counterterrorism Police in their case. Furthermore, without individual cases of detriment, campaign organisations cannot demonstrate ‘proportionality’ under International Human Rights law and are deterred from challenging these programs. As such, our failure to scandalise has revealed the constitutive roles played by law, and compartmentalisation, in the perpetuation of state violence.
