Shame,Peer, and Oscillating Frames in DWI Conviction: Extending Goffman's Sociological Landscape

Goffman argues that “the interaction order” is a substantive domain autonomous from formal social organization. His scholarship generally analyzes the interaction order in its autonomous workings but neglects the areas in which it is legally regulated. Analyzing the case of legal detention and conviction for the offense of driving while intoxicated (DWI), the article illustrates and extends Goffman's paradigm. A DWI conviction is the result of the legal system's response to distortion at the level of the interaction order. Conviction creates new interactive frames. The interaction order resists the official moral definition of DWI.