NCJ Number
183770
Date Published
1999
Length
380 pages
Annotation
This book considers the origins and implications of recent trends in the local governance of crime.
Abstract
The book analyzes current criminal justice discourses and practices which coalesce around appeals to community, prevention and partnerships, the conceptual trilogy at the heart of the book’s concerns. The book’s essential subject matters are governmental strategies, which originate both from within and outside the State. These strategies have uncertain and contested outcomes, as they embody their own contradictory logic and confront countervailing tactics. Hence, the book has a major focus on the complex ways in which the strategies are translated into everyday practices. Use of the term “governance” reflects both this and the extent to which the recent sociopolitical landscape has been transformed in relation to crime control and prevention, as well as other areas of public policy. In addition to an Introduction, the book contains eight chapters: (1) Genesis of the “Partnership” Approach and Appeals to “Community” in Crime Control; (2) Shifting Social and Political Context: Questions of Legitimacy and Responsibility; (3) Partnerships, Conflicts and Power Relations; (4) Contestable Nature of “Community”; (5) Fragmentation of the Street? (6) Questions of Accountability; (7) Local or Social Justice? and (8) Towards Conclusions. Notes, figures, tables, appendixes, bibliography, index