NCJ Number
103312
Date Published
1986
Length
263 pages
Annotation
This book identifies the paradox in citizens' search for personal security, notes the promise and threat which society and the state hold in relation to personal security, and points up the inevitability of personal insecurity under any sociopolitical structure that provides a significant measure of freedom.
Abstract
The paradox of the search for personal security is that it can only be ensured through absolute control of the behaviors of others relative to self, but this is realistically impossible since others' pursuit of personal security resists such control. The state balances the rights of citizens vis-a-vis one another's security through laws. The political order determines the extent to which the state can limit the rights and behaviors of citizens. Society also mediates interactions through the cultivation of love, moral values, and a sense of responsibility for fellow citizens' security. Attempts to expand this social influence while reducing government interventions is as threatening to personal security as the expansion of the power of the state, since personal identity is absorbed in compliance with community values. Extremist efforts to guarantee personal security inevitably threaten personal security. Personal insecurity is an inevitable consequence of the human condition, but it can best be minimized by persons' assuming personal responsibility for their own security in consultation with others managing their own personal security through the structures of society and the state. Chapter notes, 77-item select bibliography, and subject index.