Positive Criminology: Reflections on Care, Belonging and Security

Safety and security are often seen in light of crime, disorder, and fear. This fuels a political and social climate obsessed with a negative logic of 'fighting' criminals, 'controlling' populations, and 'excluding' unwanted others. Other, more positive or constitutive, discourses and practices about safety and security have fallen out of fashion. But, what alternatives to contemporary processes of securitization and criminalization can be imagined when starting from a positive critique of security? Which theoretical and empirical resources support and inspire more positive notions of security? This multidisciplinary book brings together a team of renowned scholars to stress that security also includes notions of care, trust, and belonging. By taking the concept of security beyond traditional criminal law, the book's contributors present cutting edge theoretical and empirical analyses on the importance of human connectedness, community building, and feelings of solidarity as a way to resist hegemonic and negative meanings of security. The book will appeal to researchers in the fields of criminology, political science, sociology, philosophy, and security studies. Contents include: A Critique of Security - Towards a Positive Turn in Criminology * Positive Security - A Theoretical Framework * Thinking about Sustainable Security - Metaphors, Paradoxes, and Ironies * Growing Sanguine about the Weeds - Gardening and Security Revisited * Power and Servility - An Experiment in the Ethics of Security and Counter-Security * Security in Support of Safety and Community - Thoughts from New York * Your Friendly Gasoline Station - On Habitual Space * Not 'Fortress Los Angeles' - Design and Management of Privately Owned Public Spaces in New York City * Fluid Security? Home, Care, and Belonging in Prostitution Migration * Afterthoughts - Security, Anti-Security, Positive Security.
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