Abstract
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 359-376 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Punishment and Society |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2009 |
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Policing after the crisis : crime, safety and the vulnerable public. / Waiton, Stuart.
In: Punishment and Society, Vol. 11, No. 3, 2009, p. 359-376.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
TY - JOUR
T1 - Policing after the crisis
T2 - crime, safety and the vulnerable public
AU - Waiton, Stuart
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - The growth of laws, surveillance and policing across British society can be linked back to changes under the Conservative governments of the 1970s and 1980s. However, despite some `authoritarian' developments at this time, it was not until Margaret Thatcher's demise, that there was a quantitative and qualitative shift in governing towards a form of `governing through crime'. Many of these developments have been associated with the rise of a right wing, or neo-liberal dynamic in society. However, this article argues that the obsession with crime, antisocial behaviour and the regulation of everyday life did not emerge as part of an aggressive form of neo-liberalism. Rather than their being an energetic politics behind these developments, it is more accurate to see the growth in law and the more direct regulation of society as a consequence of the collapse of politics on both the left and the right. Rather than competing for the conflicting political subject in society, the role of politicians now became to act as advocates for a diminished subject — the crime victim and the vulnerable public. Crime expanded as a field of governance due both to the political elite's sense of diminished capacity and control over society, and with the construction of a more fragile subject that needed ever more protections.
AB - The growth of laws, surveillance and policing across British society can be linked back to changes under the Conservative governments of the 1970s and 1980s. However, despite some `authoritarian' developments at this time, it was not until Margaret Thatcher's demise, that there was a quantitative and qualitative shift in governing towards a form of `governing through crime'. Many of these developments have been associated with the rise of a right wing, or neo-liberal dynamic in society. However, this article argues that the obsession with crime, antisocial behaviour and the regulation of everyday life did not emerge as part of an aggressive form of neo-liberalism. Rather than their being an energetic politics behind these developments, it is more accurate to see the growth in law and the more direct regulation of society as a consequence of the collapse of politics on both the left and the right. Rather than competing for the conflicting political subject in society, the role of politicians now became to act as advocates for a diminished subject — the crime victim and the vulnerable public. Crime expanded as a field of governance due both to the political elite's sense of diminished capacity and control over society, and with the construction of a more fragile subject that needed ever more protections.
U2 - 10.1177/1462474509334608
DO - 10.1177/1462474509334608
M3 - Article
VL - 11
SP - 359
EP - 376
JO - Punishment and Society
JF - Punishment and Society
SN - 1462-4745
IS - 3
ER -