Crime and Control in the Culture of Late Modernity

Abstract

David Garland, The Culture of Control. Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. Pp. vii + 307 pages. $30.00 cloth. Evi Girling, Ian Loader, and Richard Sparks, Crime and Social Change in Middle England: Questions of Order in an English Town. New York: Routledge, 2000. Pp. xi + 211 pages. $27.99 paper. I. Introduction Although crime, disorder, and other threats to security often generate widespread concern, these problems have become more central to political, social, and life of many industrialized nations. At same time, many Western governments-especially that of United States-have adopted more punitive and explicitly retributive control policies. Both of these developments have had important consequences for study of and control, as enhanced funding opportunities for research and increased student interest in and punishment fuel growth of criminology and criminal justice studies. Although typically housed within social science units, proliferation of free-standing criminology and criminal justice programs separates, at least at institutional level, study of and control from more established social sciences. While quite diverse, these programs often define their subject matter fairly narrowly and prioritize a specialized body of criminological theory over more general social theory and research. By contrast, two books under consideration here locate study of and control at center of social scientific and historical analysis, and, in so doing, demonstrate in profound and insightful ways that these subjects are central to social life of modern societies. Both books are particularly concerned with cultural concerning crime, order, and security; that is structures of feeling and ways of thinking and talking about these subjects. Both highlight ways in which these sensibilities are influenced by and have an influence on a wide range of social phenomena. In short, both studies bring historical, sociological, and awareness to study of and control, and, by illuminating how concerns about perceived threats to security are bound up with larger social issues, make a persuasive case for integrating study of these topics with disciplines such as history, geography, sociology, law and society, and studies. Despite this similar framework, two books approach their subject matter in very different ways. On one hand, Garland seeks to identify broad themes, trends, and unifying principles of what he, drawing on Bourdieu, refers to as control field. Having identified key features of this field in United Kingdom and United States before and after 1970s, he offers a comprehensive account of its transformation, arguing that the patterns of risk, insecurities and control problems to which American and British governments, corporations and citizens have been responding are those typically generated by social, economic, and arrangements of late modernity (2001:7). Given broad sweep of his study, Garland relies primarily on secondary sources and published materials to map these developments and to construct his explanatory framework. By contrast, Girling, Loader, and Sparks (2000) provide a very detailed account of sensibilities of people living in a single town in `Middle England,' Macclesfield. The authors demonstrate that complexity and variability of these sensibilities complicate broad generalizations made by more macro-- sociologically inclined analysts, as well as those that emerge from survey-based fear of crime literature. Their close, detailed examination of Macclesfield residents' crime-talk is based on primary research generated through multiple methods, including interviews, focus group discussions, observations, ride-alongs, and analyses of official documents, all aimed at capturing complexity and nuance of residents' sensibilities regarding and control. …