A Punitive Bind: Policing, Poverty and Neoliberalism in New York City

Abstract

Narrowly conceived, neoliberalism is a system of economic ideas and policy initiatives that emphasize small government and market-based solutions to social and economic problems. Adopted in response to the fiscal, welfare and racial crises of the Keynesian state, neoliberalism has become the dominant governing principle in the United States over the last forty years. A growing body of literature has shown how the rise of neoliberalism has underwritten the massive expansion of the American criminal justice system and the growth of its incarceral arm. Yet theorists of neoliberalism have largely ignored how the rise of neoliberalism has affected policing practices and, in turn, have failed to consider the role that police play in the neoliberal state.