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: Governing Through Crime

Mayor to Governor: The Crime Path to Power

By Jonathan Simor

Thanks to Rutger's political science professor Lisa Miller's scholarship we now understand just how different the information world about crime is around those who exercise power at the city level, and those who govern at the state or federal level. City leaders hear about crime from a wide variety of groups, of whom organized law enforcement is only a small part, and most of these groups are multi-issue organizations focused on local communities. State and federal leaders hear about crime from a limited set of hegemonic groups dominated by organized law enforcement and single issue agenda organizations, like the NRA or the ACLU. Miller studies legislatures but the same imperatives apply even more to executives. Mayors may choose to make crime a greater (Giuliani) or lesser (Dellums) theme of their administration, but their politics and policies are generally checked by the very complex links that both victims and "criminal" subjects have with the vital interests of the community (moms and dads, siblings, children, cousins, etc...continue to full post

Full post as published by Governing Through Crime on July 03, 2008 (boomark / email).