ABSTRACT
At the present time, those of us who live in modern Western societies are living through an era of unparalleled affluence, an era of new found freedoms, an era of choice and self-fulfilling opportunities. But, simultaneously, as we ourselves are regularly made aware, we also seem to be living through an era when our fears of a particular kind of criminality – unprovoked, randomised, sexual and/or violent attack – seem to be constantly escalating. And thus, on the one hand, our everyday life brings with it the possibility of excitement, allurement and self-discovery. On the other, there is a growing sense of anxiety and insecurity as the starkest fears of those whom we consider to be society’s most dangerous offenders intercede in such reveries and police our everyday pleasures. Indeed, in an era of neo-liberal polity, it is such fears that in recent years have fuelled a new and very illiberal set of dangerous offender laws targeted primarily at recidivist sex criminals. These new measures include sexual predator legislation, Megan’s law, three-strikes measures and derivatives, and various other powers of quasi-permanent incapacitation, in either the mental health or penal arena: what is common to all of these new initiatives is that they allow for enhanced measures of surveillance and detention. If the United States has been foremost in their promulgation, then various traces and elements of them are now to be found across English-speaking societies as a whole.
