The Shift to Risk Management

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates a shift from traditional forms of social control and regulation, which aim at ensuring security, to risk management strategies of late modernity, which aim at pre-empting threats and insecurities. To exemplify this move, the chapter will explore the effects of the UK’s anti-terrorism policy and legislation on the socio-political status of Muslim migrants living in Britain. HMA vs. Mohammed Atif Siddique and R vs. Malik are used as points of entry to the legal discourse on counter-terrorism. These two decisions provide starting points for examining how certain basic rights, such as the presumption of innocence, are reconsidered in light of the threat of terrorism. They also show how legal and policing measures employed to combat the threat of terrorism interact with ethno-cultural relationships in contemporary Britain. In addition, they allow us to view the UK’s anti-terrorism policy and legislation in relation to what David Garland termed a ‘culture of control’, which marks the move from a criminal policy based on ‘penal welfarism’ to a governance of crime based on ‘the management of risks’. Finally, they throw light on the tension between the UK government and the judiciary.