Getting Around and Getting On: Self-Interested Resistance to Technology in Law Enforcement Contexts

Abstract

This review considers the use of technology in law enforcement contexts, focusing on evidence of resistance to particular forms of intervention. Whereas Big Brother and civil liberties narratives dominate the academic discussion of opposition in this area, we focus on reviewing evidence of the more routine adaptations that characterize many people's response to attempts to change their behavior. Discussion of some frequently encountered technologies (including closed-circuit television and speed cameras) is situated within a reflection on the changes in conceptualizations of both crime and the criminal observable over recent decades. Many acts of resistance within this context can, it is proposed, be understood not as examples of ideological opposition but as rational and predominantly self-interested responses to these new conditions.