ABSTRACT
The previous chapter concluded with the recognition that in a world permeated with the morally ambiguous postmodern condition, where the boundaries between criminals and non criminals, and legal and illegal activities, have become increasingly difficult to distinguish, the classic crime control methods of modernity have become increasingly more problematic. Some criminologists have thus drawn upon the ‘governmentality’ literature in order to explore the links between contemporary neoliberal political policy and the growing use of ‘actuarial’ or ‘risk-based’ strategies of crime control (Stenson and Sullivan, 2001). This is a new governmentality thesis which refers to ‘the new means to render populations thinkable and measurable through categorisation, differentiation, and sorting into hierarchies, for the purpose of government’ (Stenson, 2001: 22-3). This chapter will commence with a consideration of these new modes of governance, the wider notion of the risk society and the threats contained within it which seem to be a significant outcome of the postmodern condition, and will conclude by considering the internationalisation of crime and risk in terms of globalisation and the morally ambiguous notion of terrorism.
