ABSTRACT

Our third and final challenge to lesbian and gay demands for state violence again arises in the context of contemporary debates about the role of the state in the provision of internal security and safety. A feature of the current crime control agenda, Garland suggests, is the announcement that the capacity of the sovereign state to ensure safety and security, in the face of crime in general and violence in particular, is limited. The novelty of this official declaration indicates that crime control is being re-imagined. The sovereign state is no longer to be thought of as either the only, or the primary, provider of safety and security in response to violence (Garland 1996). Instead, the new institutional landscape of crime control is one of ‘partnerships’ and ‘networks’ of public and private institutions. A key dimension of this new model of crime control is private responsibility. The morally responsible individual (or self) is a key provider of safety and security in this new order of crime control.