Crime waves and neoliberalization

A walk in Washington and a walk through literature, film, and philosophy are not so different, both are an exploration of the world that ultimately is shaped and classified by talk. Literary forms often express the quality of reality, which also surface in the genre of scientific writings concerning marginality such as texts by F. Fanon and M. Foucault. Jean Genet opens his book “Querelle” with a metaphor of the ocean, where murder is compared to waves; criminality is a function of the sea, and a characteristic of sailors and seaports (Genet1974: 4).

Across cultures and across time crime is associated with youth and young men in particular.Crime waves have been associated with changing demographics (Hirschi: 1983). In Washington both violent and property crime have been decreasing along with the general population and percentage of young people. In 2005 however, violent and property crimes increased, leading to the conclusion that fewer individuals were doing more. Other factors might account for this increase.

                        fig.1 young people living in DC 2000-2004
Neo-liberal policies of free trade, deregulation, privatization, and public/private partnerships have reduced the social wage. One might consider the "global shift" (Dicken: 2003) as being a shift to "networked society" (Castells: 1996) where connectivity rather than place becomes increasingly prominent (Sassen: 2001) in such a context, it might be that "social imaginaries" (Soja: 2000) fix "spaces of flows"(Castells: 1996). Features of the neo-liberal world order include governance (Karns, Mingst: 2004) and retrofitted urban areas (Sassen: 2001). Globalized production processes have blended core and periphery; have destabilized the nation -state as primary unit, and de-territorialized conflict (Dicken: 2003; Castells: 2000; Duffield: 2002; Sassen: 2001) Traditional spaces of resistance and representation, unions and communities have been bypassed by governance. In the margins a parasitic shadow economy has emerged in a symbiotic relationship with privatized entities such as NGOs or subcontractors performing functions once under the domain of the state (Castells: 2000; Duffield: 2002). Transgressive rather than transformative, street organizations are unexpected outcomes of the master narrative of the new world order. People make do and get by in the shadow economy of informal casualized labor, including prostitution and drug trafficking-not just jobs but total lifestyles.

Creating a situation where worlds collide, infill development puts into close proximity those with power and those without. In an increasingly integrated world system spawned by neoliberal reforms, urban areas are being retrofitted to accommodate the needs of creative workers (Hutton: 2006). Structured in dominance, the landscape of the city is being reshaped, the street life of prostitutes and open air drug markets are disappearing replaced by Starbucks and stylish retail establishments. For residents of the spaces of flows, these signs denote safety, but in fact represent a clash between the spaces of flows and the spaces of places. The raw number of violent incidents in Washington has been declining as aging and population decline as a whole have their effect, however the targets for street crime seem to have shifted from the powerless to the relatively influential.
references:
Fanon, Franz. (1963) “Wretched of the Earth”. NY: Grove Press, 2004

Foucault, Michael. (1978) “The History of Sexuality, an Introduction” Volume I. New York: Vintage Books.
Genet, Jean (1974) “Querelle” New York: Grove Press