Richard V. Ericson - Böcker

In this provocative new book, Richard Ericson and Kevin Haggerty contend that the police have become information brokers to institutions such as insurance companies and health and welfare organizations that operate based on a knowledge of risk. In turn, these institutions influence the ways that police officers think and act. A critical review of existing research reveals the need to study police interaction with institutions as well as individuals. These institutions are part of an emerging "risk society" where knowledge of risk is used to control danger. The authors examine different aspects of police involvement; the use of surveillance technologies and the collection of data on securities, careers and different social, ethnic, age and gender groups. They conclude by looking at how police organizations have been forced to develop new communications rules and technologies to meet external demands for knowledge of risk. This is the first book in this field to include detailed evidence of some of the central tenets of the risk society. It also includes a sophisticated examination of the risk society theory that will advance readers' knowledge considerably. With this book, the authors revolutionize the study of policing, and their work will impact heavily on scholars in criminology, social theory, and communications as well as policing and the public.

In this provocative new book, Richard Ericson and Kevin Haggerty contend that the police have become information brokers to institutions such as insurance companies and health and welfare organizations that operate based on a knowledge of risk. In turn, these institutions influence the ways that police officers think and act. A critical review of existing research reveals the need to study police interaction with institutions as well as individuals. These institutions are part of an emerging "risk society" where knowledge of risk is used to control danger. The authors examine different aspects of police involvement; the use of surveillance technologies and the collection of data on securities, careers and different social, ethnic, age and gender groups. They conclude by looking at how police organizations have been forced to develop new communications rules and technologies to meet external demands for knowledge of risk. This is the first book in this field to include detailed evidence of some of the central tenets of the risk society. It also includes a sophisticated examination of the risk society theory that will advance readers' knowledge considerably. With this book, the authors revolutionize the study of policing, and their work will impact heavily on scholars in criminology, social theory, and communications as well as policing and the public.

Crime in an Insecure World investigates the alarming trend across Western societies of treating every imaginable source of harm as a crime. It locates this trend in the 21st century obsession with insecurity fostered by neo-liberal governments. It explains why selected issues of national security (threats of terrorism), social security (benefit system integrity), corporate security (liabilities for harm) and domestic security (anti-social behaviour) are at the top of the political agenda. It documents how this politics of insecurity leads to enormous expenditures on risk assessment and management that ironically reveal the limits of risk-based reasoning and intensify uncertainty. Catastrophic imaginations are fuelled, precautionary logics become pervasive, and extreme security measures are institutionalized. The security measures include the invention of disturbing new forms of ‘counter law’ or ‘law against law’. Counter law criminalizes not only those who actually cause harm, but also those merely suspected of being harmful, as well as authorities who are deemed responsible for security failures. Traditional principles, standards and procedures of criminal law are eroded or eliminated altogether, and civil and administrative law become more salient in processes of criminalization. Counter law also involves the innovative expansion of surveillance technologies and networks. CCTV, smart cards, data matching, data mining, and private policing all facilitate criminalization of the merely suspicious and security failures. Security trumps justice, and uncertainty proves itself.This book is grounded in leading-edge theory and research across academic disciplines. It contributes to the most critical and contested debates in 21st century politics. It is of great interest not only to students of politics, sociology, law, criminology, risk management and public policy, but also to the general reader.

Crime in an Insecure World investigates the alarming trend across Western societies of treating every imaginable source of harm as a crime. It locates this trend in the 21st century obsession with insecurity fostered by neo-liberal governments. It explains why selected issues of national security (threats of terrorism), social security (benefit system integrity), corporate security (liabilities for harm) and domestic security (anti-social behaviour) are at the top of the political agenda. It documents how this politics of insecurity leads to enormous expenditures on risk assessment and management that ironically reveal the limits of risk-based reasoning and intensify uncertainty. Catastrophic imaginations are fuelled, precautionary logics become pervasive, and extreme security measures are institutionalized. The security measures include the invention of disturbing new forms of ‘counter law’ or ‘law against law’. Counter law criminalizes not only those who actually cause harm, but also those merely suspected of being harmful, as well as authorities who are deemed responsible for security failures. Traditional principles, standards and procedures of criminal law are eroded or eliminated altogether, and civil and administrative law become more salient in processes of criminalization. Counter law also involves the innovative expansion of surveillance technologies and networks. CCTV, smart cards, data matching, data mining, and private policing all facilitate criminalization of the merely suspicious and security failures. Security trumps justice, and uncertainty proves itself.This book is grounded in leading-edge theory and research across academic disciplines. It contributes to the most critical and contested debates in 21st century politics. It is of great interest not only to students of politics, sociology, law, criminology, risk management and public policy, but also to the general reader.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 2001, surveillance has been put forward as the essential tool for the ‘war on terror,’ with new technologies and policies offering police and military operatives enhanced opportunities for monitoring suspect populations. The last few years have also seen the public’s consumer tastes become increasingly codified, with ‘data mines’ of demographic information such as postal codes and purchasing records. Additionally, surveillance has become a form of entertainment, with ‘reality’ shows becoming the dominant genre on network and cable television.In The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility, editors Kevin D. Haggerty and Richard V. Ericson bring together leading experts to analyse how society is organized through surveillance systems, technologies, and practices. They demonstrate how the new political uses of surveillance make visible that which was previously unknown, blur the boundaries between public and private, rewrite the norms of privacy, create new forms of inclusion and exclusion, and alter processes of democratic accountability. This collection challenges conventional wisdom and advances new theoretical approaches through a series of studies of surveillance in policing, the military, commercial enterprises, mass media, and health sciences.

From the point of his arrest through to the final disposition of his case, the authors follow the accused as he proceeds through the criminal control system. They draw a picture of one who is dependent upon the orders and decisions of the police, crown attorney, defence lawyer, and judge and not a defendant with significant autonomy. Substudies conducted under a program of the Centre of Criminology provide empirical material on patrol police, detectives, crown attorneys and defence lawyers and are complemented by the authors’ own interviews of accused persons. They produce a unique picture of the person who stands accused: unlike the official agents who are regular and experienced participants in the criminal process, the accused is a ‘one-shot’ player. As a dependant he is subject to the orders and decisions of the official criminal control agents; he fails to exercise what appear externally as his formal rights because the apparent costs exceed the advantages. He complies with police searches, fails to remain silent, fails to call a third party, gives a statement, often does not obtain a lawyer, routinely accepts his lawyer’s advice, rarely demands a trial, often remains silent in court, and very rarely considers an appeal. The ordering which the accused meets out of court is reproduced in the public forum of the court. Through the display of formal legal rationality there and in the belief that matters ‘could have been a lot worse,’ he experiences the ‘majesty, justice, and mercy’ of the criminal process and, in turn, accords legitimacy to the actions taken against him. The authors discuss prospects for changing the criminal process and conclude that the range of reforms that have been advocated, and sometimes implemented, does not lead to an alteration of the accused’s position within the ordering of justice because the system is not truly adversarial. Rather, it serves the interests of the state in ordering the population as well as professional interests of those who man the system.

We live in an age of increasing doubt about whether our institutions and technologies can provide security against risks, many of which they themselves have created. Uncertain Business is an unprecedented inquiry into insurance industry practices and what they tell us about risks and uncertainties in contemporary society.The core of the book is ethnographic studies in distinct fields of insurance: premature death, disability, earthquake, and terrorism. These studies reveal that uncertainty pervades different fields of insurance, the very industry that is charged with transforming uncertainty into manageable risk. Scientific data on risk are variously absent, inadequate, controversial, contradictory, and ignored. Insurers impose meaning on uncertainty through non-scientific forms of knowledge that are intuitive, emotional, aesthetic, moral, and speculative. Nevertheless, the nature of uncertainty and the response to it varies substantially across the fields studied, showing how contemporary society is characterized by competing risk logics.Insurers' perceptions and decisions about uncertainty - with potential for windfall profits as well as catastrophic losses - create crises in insurance availability and provoke new forms of inequality and exclusion. Hence, while the insurance industry is a central bulwark against uncertainty, insurers also play a key role in fostering it.