Terror carceralism: Surveillance, security governance and de/civilization

Abstract

Following the first 15 convictions under the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act, Canadian penal authorities developed new surveillance and security practices targeting this small population of prisoners. Primarily, reforms ensure that terror convicts are labelled as highly dangerous offenders, despite any of them having participated in attacks or violence. Focusing on the Canadian context, this article contributes to recent scholarship by discussing how these emergent penal practices are informed by a convergence of domestic anti-terrorism policies and a networked field of counter-terrorism experts; what Bigo calls (in)security management professionals. Detailing recent debates and reforms, I focus on emergent ‘deradicalization’ strategies that are informed by transnational ‘working groups’ and (in)security management actors. I argue that these increasingly illiberal counter-terrorism practices are framed as measures of social defence against the enemies of western civilization. Yet, paradoxically, these emergent security practices are antithetical to the ‘civilizing process’ of penal modernism, further displacing discourses of rehabilitation or reintegration and entrenching a ‘criminology of the other’. I conclude by discussing what I call new practices of terror carceralism, which represent an entrenchment of vengeance and retribution, justifying a host of invasive surveillance and security measures against those caricaturized as captured terrorist others.