Security/Capital: A general theory of pacification

What is security, and what is its relationship to capitalism? George S. Rigakos' powerful sociological treatise charts the rise of the security-industrial complex. Starting from a critical appraisal of 'productive labour' in the works of Karl Marx and Adam Smith, Rigakos builds a conceptual model of pacification based on practices of dispossession, exploitation and the fetish of security commodities. Rigakos argues that a defining characteristic of the global economic system is its ability to productively sell (in)security to those it makes insecure. Materially and ideologically, the security-industrial complex is the blast furnace of global capitalism, fuelling the perpetuation of the system while feeding relentlessly on the surpluses it has exacted

Nightclub: Bouncers, risk, and the spectacle of consumption

In the last thirty years bouncers have emerged as gatekeepers of contemporary urban cool, exclusivity, and social capital. In this ground-breaking empirical study, George Rigakos looks at the relation between consumption, security, and risk and challenges the idea of nightclubs as places of liberation and personal expression. People go to nightclubs to see and be seen - to view others as aesthetic objects and to present themselves as objects of desire. Rigakos argues that this activity fuses surveillance and aesthetic consumption - it fetishizes bodies and amplifies social capital, producing violence and crises fuelled by alcohol. At closing time, patrons flow out of the insular haze of the nightclub and onto city streets, moving from private spectacle to public nuisance. Bouncers are thus both policing agents in the nighttime economy and the gatekeepers of an urban risk market - a site of circumscribed transgression and consumption that begins at the nightclub door

New right, new left, new challenges: Understanding and responding to neoconservatism in contemporary criminology

This essay examines the rise of neoconservative thought within criminological discourse from the enlightenment 'quarrel' with ancient philosophy and church supported scholasticism in the 1700s to the present day. From the perspective of criminology, it is argued that there is little new about the 'new right' with the exception that it has managed to galvanize itself as a popular retributionist alternative among the working class in the United States, Canada, and England. The current organization of social institutions in a modern 'risk society' facilitates the easy re-definition of the crises of late-modern capitalism into issues of social control. It is not surprising we find the right reinvigorated and prominent under these conditions. New left realism and crime control through social development are offered as competitive platforms from which to advance critique of barbaric right-wing crime-control policies

Hyperpanoptics as commodity: The case of the parapolice

Developments in computerisation and neo-liberal state logics have promoted the growth of private police services. This paper theorises the evolution of the "hyperpanotics" of "parapolice" surveillance by examining the practices of The Law Enforcement Company in Toronto, Ontario. Neo-liberal risk markets are anomic and fear-inducing, and propel developments in the commodification of surveillance. The new parapolice of late modernity are charged with making "dangerous" populations "known." This is accomplished through a process of perpetual examination, and the erection of digital, virtual, hyperpanoptic systems geared to making both security employees and the populations they monitor transparent and accountable. This parapolice machine, and the actuarial practices it supports, can then be resold to a consumerised citizenry. This paper maps these processes along with the multiple modes of resistance employed by actors under its purview

Situational determinants of police responses to civil and criminal injunctions for battered women

Informed by a feminist perspective, this article examines the enforcement practices of police officers when responding to breaches of civil restraining orders and Canadian Criminal Code peace bonds. Police officers for Delta, British Columbia, were administered a questionnaire (N = 45) focusing on their actions when presented with a restraining order by a survivor at a domestic call. Self-report data show that an arrest ensues in only 21% of the cases where there is a breach of a civil restraining order (N = 19), and 35% of the cases where a breached peace bond is presented (N = 29). Despite this, more officers report recommending women obtain a civil restraining order (62%) than a peace bond (53%). The police disclose that when they do arrest for breaches of protective court orders, there are signs of forced entry, a potentially violent offender, or signs of a struggle. A woman's plea that the police arrest is ranked sixth out of 12 situational variables inciting the police to enforce the order

Constructing the symbolic complainant: Police subculture and the nonenforcement of protection orders for battered women

This exploratory study examines the effect of patriarchy on police subcultural and individual attitudes toward the enforcement of protective court orders for battered women. Police officers (N = 13) and justice officials (N = 8) in the Municipality of Delta were interviewed for their opinions on the efficacy of both Criminal Code peace bonds and Family Relations Act (R.S.B.C., amended 1986) civil restraining orders. Interview data suggest that both protective orders are rarely treated seriously by the police or the courts. It is argued that the occupational culture of the police leads to exaggerated patriarchal notions of women, marriage, and family that are conservative; blame the victim; point the finger at other institutions; foster images of women as manipulative; and produce a fictitious narrative of battered women

Risk, crime and gender

This article offers a feminist critique of risk theorizing for criminology. Current theoretical discussions of 'risk society' and governmentality are critically appraised with reference to gender, raising questions about the nature of risk for various social groups. Theories of risk taking and risk management in late modernity have assumed a general universality of calculation and effect borne out of instrumental science. Women's negotiation of risk, however, both in terms of risk taking and risk avoidance point to an understanding of risk as inherently gendered and not easily universalized. Moreover, theorizing risk from a gendered perspective highlights its political nature, challenging the idea of risk as a neutral concept and risk assessment as an intended apolitical actuarial practice of late modernity. Instead, we contend that how women experience risk and how we view such experiences are shaped by the politics of gender. Formulations of risk are deeply embedded in gender, race and class politics, and the narrow conception of risk taken in criminological writings has consequently excluded women's experiences of crime

Policing the industrial reserve army: An international study

Over the past three decades, the industrialized world has witnessed four resilient social trends: (1) the consistent erosion of union-membership; (2) an increase in income polarization and inequality; (3) a dramatic resurgence in popular protest; and (4) a steady rise in public and private policing employment. In this paper, we examine the relationship between these trends by theorizing and operationalizing the notion of the "industrial reserve army" and a series of related tenets in order to conduct an international (N = 45), empirical test of a nascent Marxian model of policing. By treating total policing employment as an empirical barometer of bourgeois insecurity we find that this insecurity is conditioned by two elements of Marxian political economy: (1) relative deprivation (income inequality) and (2) the rise of an industrial reserve army (manufacturing employment and unemployment). Second, while surplus value and labour militancy (strikes and lockouts per 100,000 population) rise along with union membership, the presence of higher rates of

Risk, realism and the politics of resistance

Social theorizing about risk has produced important implications for both analytic strategy and resistance. The ontology of risk, however, has either been taken for granted or dismissed altogether. We consider what a realist philosophy of risk might look like given the desire to analyze risks as more than discursive constructs yet avoiding the pitfalls of empiricism. We argue that a necessary first step is to treat as ontologically real both the objects and subjects of risk power. While a realist philosophy of risk does not necessarily produce critical praxis, within the context of class struggle it does allow for this possibility by providing the tools necessary for recognizing risk's historical situatedness and the political role of science in resisting risk ideologies