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: Governing Through Crime

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By Jonathan Simor

A friend from southern California wrote the other day to share a nightmare that I have come to believe lives at the heart of the whole "governing through crime," "culture of control" regime. No, thankfully neither she, nor anyone in her family were killed or injured in a violent crime. (Sadly that happened to friend of ours who was killed in a robbery near an Oakland ATM in the late '80s or early 90s). That happens to many, but even in America it is not widespread enough (and is too concentrated among the poor) to found a political regime. The nightmare we can all imagine, if we haven't actually lived it, is a potentially violent "criminal" penetrating or attempting to penetrate the sacred precincts of our home. It is that nightmare that keeps us seeking to live as far as possible from the city center where we imagine such criminals live, and which leads us to squander billions to mass incarcerate as many of them as possible...continue to full post

Full post as published by Governing Through Crime on May 26, 2009 (boomark / email).