ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the emerging national criminal records system manifests many of the disadvantages of both local and national control while providing few of the advantages of either. Neither of the perspectives tells much about how government actors have used public concern and bureaucratic imperatives to bring the electronic Panopticon. To understand policy strategy in the development of the criminal records system, we must look to symbolic politics. Computerized criminal justice record keeping has grown to immense proportions in the United States since the early 1970s. Virtually everywhere, law enforcement agencies have access to the national system without reservation. Defenders of the national criminal records system usually justify its reach by alleging that it provides significant benefits in the war against crime. The national system is only as accurate as the local and state law enforcement records that constitute it. The coercive power of the criminal law can enforce and shape the political system.
