The War on Crime

'The war on crime' — which way to the front?
Fear of crime and an emerging "culture of control" have led us to a dangerous place in terms of our social development and personal responsibility.
"Something is happening here / But you don't know what it is ..."
Criminologist David Garland reworked this Bob Dylan refrain to caution those making hasty assumptions about what's happened to American and British criminal justice in the past three decades.
His recent study, The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society (Oxford University Press) also reminds those contributing to crime control in Australia how their roles have been embedded in a perverse historical (and professional) "simple twist of fate" (to quote Dylan again).
Garland addresses what is arguably the most fundamental and profound concept in the psychological lexicon: "control".
A need for control (of self) is essential for survival, yet equally issues of control (of others) also lie at the root ...