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¶ … vision of the police force in aspects of 'modernity' is that it is a replica of the nation-state enforcing a unitary body of law on a specific population; it is an objective institution expressing a universal truth and binding social deviants to follow that truth. Postmodernism, through consumerism, fragmentation of values, globalization, and fracturing of nation-state, is popularly seen as destructive to modernity's grasp on crime control and community safety (Gibbins, 1998; O'Malley, 2005). That, however, as this essay shows, is not so clear.
Foucault summed it up nicely when he referred to the prison system as an institution that foists an identify on a specific population (Hill & Tait, 2004), and by so doing fails in its objective of 'correcting' these individuals:
The prison, and no doubt, punishment in general, is not intended to eliminate offences, but rather to distinguish them, to distribute them, to use them; that it is not so much that they render docile those who are liable to transgress the law, but that they tend to discriminate the transgression of the laws in a general tactic of subjection. The failure of prison may be understood on this basis (Foucault, 1977: 272).
In a similar manner, Grabosky (1999) finds the concept 'zero tolerance' policing aggravating for it is reminiscent of the urge to seek a quick fix to the nation's crime problems, and, therefore, a simplistic statement and a potentially dangerous and ominous step in the direction of a totalitarian society. The police is made to seem as an occupying army, but, in reality, there is no single panacea since crime is a complex affair stemming as it does from many causes and many different origins.
Governments do not intend...
In an obfuscating loop of good intentions, disillusionment, and hope (Cohen, 1985), the jail system or police force, nonetheless, is not working (Home Office Research Study 292, 2005) and is in danger of becoming more authoritarian as the HMIC (2010) shows with its observation that: "The CJS has grown in the absence of any systematic control. In the last 15 years there have been at least 14 pieces of legislation that have added to the process" (p4).
To that end, individuals, such as Water (2007), urge police leaders and policy makers to assume postmodern sensitivities in relation to social change and policing. Today's society is increasingly fragmented, diverse, and eclectic, and Water (2007) recommends that policing form a mirror setting, constructed within a postmodernist framework that reflects external conditions. We should investigate all the different lifestyle groupings, and the endless variety of practices and 'lifeworlds' that fall into these groupings. Today's complex society cannot constitute the homogeneity of a modernist perspective. There are multiple influences on the environment. These include economic, societal, political, and technological changes that bombard the environment in an unceasing barrage. Not only is today's environment so much more complex than it has ever been (Shattock, Hedges, Brain, Grieve, & Lake, 1996), but individuals, themselves, are comprised of multiple narratives and perspectives, with often-conflicting facets and needs. Gibbins (1998), therefore, recommends that the police policy abandon essentialism and assume a new perspective of pluralism and pragmatism. Recognition that society is complex and ambiguous, would lead to greater empathy of criminals and their actions, and would…
Shattock, L., Hedges, M., Brain, G., Grieve, E., & Lake, S. (1996). Through the millennium: The policing agenda, Avon and Somerset Constabulary.
South, S. (2000), Late modern tensions, not post-modern transformations, CJM No. 38
Waters, I. (2007) Policing, Modernity and Postmodernity, in Waters, I. (ed.) Policing and Society. USA: Routledge
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