ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the nation state’s varied and shifting responses to the challenges of crime and justice in borderlands, and then turns attention to the impact of those responses. It presents a context for research on crime and justice in the borderlands, to suggest conceptual frameworks that may facilitate analysis in this unique environment, and to propose ways to assess the impact of the criminalization of border crossing on immigrants and communities. The chapter examines the effects of the way borders are conceptualized and efforts to enforce those borders on crime and public safety, civil society, and the economy. Criminology confronts the dynamic of borders in a shrinking world in order to study emerging trends, such as crimmigration, and enduring conflicts between the desire of nations for cheap, pliable immigrant labor and reluctance to include them as full-fledged members of the body politic.
