ABSTRACT
Concerns about crime and insecurity have become essential aspects of the political and social discourse of individuals, communities, nongovernmental organisations, businesses, governments and international bodies. We are increasingly governed through crime and insecurity. Public issues are increasingly defined in terms of their potential crimogenic qualities or adverse implications for safety and security. Crime and insecurity have come to occupy a prominent place in political discourse, the construction of social order and cultural representations of the times in which we live. They are at the forefront of the public imagination, influencing so much of the activities and talk of ordinary citizens. Moreover, crime and insecurity are on the move; they circulate in novel ways, penetrating public and private spheres, seeping through new technologies and turning apparently benign and taken-for-granted aspects of contemporary life – such as shopping, travel, working and using the Internet – into potential threats. In a ‘liquid’ modern world (Bauman 2000) they simultaneously invade local and transnational arenas. Just as crime and insecurity appear to be shifting, so too responses to crime and insecurity are on the move. They are being refocused and extended just as the criminal justice complex and the modern nation-state itself are the subjects of transformation. As crime and insecurity have become unbounded so too policing is becoming cut free from its association with the modern state to incorporate a diversity of actors.
