Abstract Critical criminologists insist on criminal prosecution to preserve workers’ dignity in response to companies’ deadly disregard. Yet the ways the bereaved resort to the criminal justice system and the transformations this mobilization has wrought in their sense of worth and justice remain underexplored. Based on fieldwork on safety activism led by surviving families and cause lawyers in Turkey, this article identifies the ideational, emotional, and relational processes that coalesce to ignite, develop, and sustain the demand for punishment as a means of achieving safer workplaces. The findings show how the expressive function of penal law, coupled with access to cause lawyering and affective bonds formed in the movement, transforms the bereaved into empowered justice seekers, even without legal vindication.
Yalçın Özkan (Wed,) studied this question.