ABSTRACT
In addition to an intrinsic electoral popularity of many aspects of the programmes and ideology of neo-liberalism itself, it was helped to political dominance by a sustained economic and cultural critique of welfarism. In effect, neo-liberalism claimed to offer a new sense of freedom – freedom from the supposed restraints and debilitating consequences of welfare – and an altogether new set of possibilities designed to maximize the potential of human existence. Dangerousness owes its existence and new form to them and not to the official crime statistics which have faded further into the background of risk assessment. Towards the end of the welfare era, high levels of imprisonment were becoming a source of shame in modern societies: as risks had been reduced and security more embedded, overflowing prisons became a sign of the state's inhumanity towards its unfortunates and of its ineffectiveness in its chosen modalities of governing.
