Research Catalog

Title

Cops, crime and capitalism : the law and order agenda in Canada / Todd Gordon.

Author

Gordon, Todd, 1973-

Publication

Halifax, N.S. : Fernwood Pub., c2006.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

171 p.; 23 cm.

Summary

"Framed within a Marxist class analysis that highlights the way in which state power and capitalist social relations are racialized and gendered, Gordon's study locates law-and-order policing as a central moment of capitalist state power. He argues that, as with policing historically, crime-fighting is not the principal aim of contemporary law-and-order policing. Its aim is the production of a new social order based on the severely diminished expectations of working people. Crime fighting matters only insofar as it helps in this process. Law-and-order policing is not really a fight against rampant and escalating crime; rather it is aimed at forcefully limiting any possibilities the able-bodied poor may try to pursue to avoid the worst forms of wage labour." "Gordon says that to properly understand the law-and-order agenda, we must situate it within the broader context of the political and economic changes associated with neoliberalism. Law-and-order policing is not an isolated state policy endeavour or policing practice. It is a central feature of a state power that, far from retreating with the demise of the Keynsian welfare state, is actively facilitating the establishment of a new - neoliberal - capitalist order premised on the restructuring of social relations. Law-and-order policing is very much about the role of an aggressive state and its relationship to the class struggle lying at the heart of contemporary Canadian society. Book jacket."--Jacket.

Subject

• Police-community relations > Canada
• Poor > Canada
• Discrimination in law enforcement > Canada
• Social control > Canada
• Capitalism > Canada
• Neoliberalism > Canada
• Police > Canada
• Pauvres > Canada
• Discrimination dans l'application des lois > Canada
• Contrôle social > Canada
• Capitalisme > Canada
• Néo-libéralisme > Canada

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-164) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

A critical look at panoptic theories of policing -- Producing capitalist order : police, class, race and gender -- Contemporary law-and-order policies : policing, class struggle and neoliberal restructuring -- Panhandling bylaws and the safe streets act : the return of vagrancy law -- Criminalization, race and neoliberal order : policing immigrant communities.

ISBN

1552661857 (pbk.)

LCCN

^^2006389673

OCLC

65423773

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library