Crime Prevention as Totalitarian Biopolitics

• NCJ Number: 212605
• Journal: Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Dated: 2005 Pages: 91-105
• Author(s): Christian Borch
• Date Published: 2005
• Length: 15 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article examines several prescriptions from the Danish Crime Prevention Council arguing that in the name of prevention, ever-new social and material technologies are invented to regulate the life of ordinary citizens.

Abstract

Crime prevention can be assessed in various ways. The perspective applied in this article is an assessment of crime prevention that takes place without referencing effectiveness or efficiency. The article examines the rationality which is inherent in the prescription of a wide range of social and material technologies of crime prevention. By drawing upon Michel Foucault’s analytics of power, and focusing on material from the Danish Crime Prevention Council, it demonstrates that the Council is guided by a rationality of governing that seeks to regulate virtually all aspects of everyday life. First, the Foucauldian approach is outlined. Then, a number of specific suggestions published in works by the Danish Crime Prevention Council are analyzed. The article demonstrates that the preventive rationality is endowed with an inherently expansive tendency. The article continues by focusing on the contention that preventive strategies must be integrated in educational programs and on the claim that health and crime are independently linked. It examines the Council’s assertion that crime prevention must concentrate on community technologies, such as measures which seek to strengthen communities and local ties. It continues with attention paid to the idea that crime may be prevented through architecture and urban design. Finally, an analytical characteristic of the Council’s rationality of crime prevention is offered, claiming a fundamental attempt to install an almost totalitarian biopolitical power. It is also argued that this rationality must be seen as closely related to a general tendency in crime control that emphasizes risk. References