The Credibility Complex

We are all shaped by what Deborah Tuerkheimer, calls the credibility complex—forces that make us prone to credibility discounting of accusers, especially society’s most vulnerable and marginalized women and credibility boosting of the accused, most noticeably men of status and privilege. People who routinely mete out these discounts and boosts include police officers, prosecutors, school officials, workplace personnel, friends, roommates, parents and the law itself. Tuerkheimer explores restorative justice’s pros and cons and what it means to be vindicated within and outside the criminal justice system. She offers solutions for dismantling the credibility complex, showing how we can remake law and culture so that trust blame and care are no longer meted out along axes of power. Tuerkheimer, AB Harvard and JD Yale, is a professor at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and has served for five years as an Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office, specializing in domestic violence and child abuse prosecution.
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