The Simulation of Crime Control

Abstract

The authors argue that policing by consent is being displaced by policing by information control. This discomfiting adaptation in liberal democracies is possible in the shadow of asymmetrical, border-collapsing exceptionalism. It has also benefited from synoptic effects in which reference to the liberal democratic legacy substitutes for liberal democratic practices. Current technologies, as demonstrated in watch-listing, public relations operations, and fourth-generation training, exemplify ironic homage to a consent and democracy. These take for granted the loss of innocence: There is no “real” (democracy, order, control) but rather impressions, which require effective simulations. The article concludes with the contention that today it is control, not justice, that must be “seen to be done.”