Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. 171 p.; 23 cm.

Summary

1. "Framed within a Marxist class analysis that highlights the way in which state power and capitalist social relations are racialized and gendered, Gordon's study locates law-and-order policing as a central moment of capitalist state power. He argues that, as with policing historically, crime-fighting is not the principal aim of contemporary law-and-order policing. Its aim is the production of a new social order based on the severely diminished expectations of working people. Crime fighting matters only insofar as it helps in this process. Law-and-order policing is not really a fight against rampant and escalating crime; rather it is aimed at forcefully limiting any possibilities the able-bodied poor may try to pursue to avoid the worst forms of wage labour." "Gordon says that to properly understand the law-and-order agenda, we must situate it within the broader context of the political and economic changes associated with neoliberalism. Law-and-order policing is not an isolated state policy endeavour or policing practice. It is a central feature of a state power that, far from retreating with the demise of the Keynsian welfare state, is actively facilitating the establishment of a new - neoliberal - capitalist order premised on the restructuring of social relations. Law-and-order policing is very much about the role of an aggressive state and its relationship to the class struggle lying at the heart of contemporary Canadian society. Book jacket."--Jacket.

Subject

1. Police-community relations > Canada
2. Poor > Canada
3. Discrimination in law enforcement > Canada
4. Social control > Canada
5. Capitalism > Canada
6. Neoliberalism > Canada
7. Police > Canada
8. Pauvres > Canada
9. Discrimination dans l'application des lois > Canada
10. Contrôle social > Canada
11. Capitalisme > Canada
12. Néo-libéralisme > Canada

Contents

1. A critical look at panoptic theories of policing -- Producing capitalist order : police, class, race and gender -- Contemporary law-and-order policies : policing, class struggle and neoliberal restructuring -- Panhandling bylaws and the safe streets act : the return of vagrancy law -- Criminalization, race and neoliberal order : policing immigrant communities.

Owning institution

1. Harvard Library

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-164) and index.

Processing action (note)

1. committed to retain