The Truth Machines: Policing, Violence, and Scientific Interrogations in India

A recording of this event is now available.

This event is part of Critical Perspectives on Justice and Inequality, a new series on criminological and sociolegal dimensions of anti-Black racism, Indigenous peoples, and settler colonialism.

This event will take place over Zoom. Access details are available from the Online Event Page after you register.

About Dr. Lokaneeta's recent book, The Truth Machines: Policing, Violence, and Scientific Interrogations in India

The Truth Machines examines the emergence and use of [lie detectors, brain scans, and narcoanalysis] to analyze two primary themes. First, the book questions whether existing theoretical frameworks for understanding state power and legal violence are adequate to explain constant innovations of the state. Second, it explores the workings of law, science, and policing in the everyday context to generate a theory of state power and legal violence, challenging the monolithic frameworks about this relationship, based on a study of both state and non-state actors.

Jinee Lokaneeta argues that the attempt to replace physical torture with truth machines in India fails because it relies on a confessional paradigm that is contiguous with torture. Her work also provides insights into a police institution that is founded and refounded in its everyday interactions between state and non-state actors. Theorizing a concept of Contingent State, this book demonstrates the disaggregated, and decentered nature of state power and legal violence, creating possible sites of critique and intervention.

Dr. Jinee Lokaneeta is Professor in Political Science and International Relations at Drew University.

Moderators: Dr. Beatrice Jauregui, Associate Professor, CrimSL and Dr. Bhavani Raman, Associate Professor, Department of History

Discussants: Tyler King, PhD Student, CrimSL and Daniel Konikoff, PhD Student, CrimSL

Tyler King is a third-year PhD student at the University of Toronto's Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies. His research focuses on the presentation of expert testimony and diagnostic technologies in criminal trials.

Daniel is a PhD student at the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies and a Graduate Fellow at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. He is interested in the intersection of criminology and science and technology studies (STS), with an emphasis on police technologies, big data surveillance, and predictive justice.

We will strive to create an accessible space that reduces the need for you to disclose a disability or impairment for the purposes of gaining an accommodation. If you would like to confirm a specific accommodation, please contact crimsl.communications@utoronto.ca and we will do our best to make appropriate arrangements.