ABSTRACT
Just a decade ago security had little claim to criminological attention. Security was the province of international relations, international law, and war studies. Security referred to national or military security, matters well beyond parochial criminological concerns. Today it is a central theme in criminology. Criminologists talk of ‘governing security’, ‘governing through security’, ‘selling security’, ‘civilizing security’, ‘imagining security’ and tackling ‘insecurity’, as well as making concrete reference to ‘security management systems’, ‘private security’, and the ‘security industry’.1
