Mona Lynch, Hard Bargains: The Coercive Power of Drug Laws in Federal Court
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| Author | Doris M Provine |
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474517698094 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Punishment & Society 20(5)
police practices are also driven by a motivation to prove one’s level of performance
to escape negative sanctions in the organization.
The Politics of Crime in Turkey is a stimulating, well-written book. Go¨nen
makes a strong contribution to an interdisciplinary literature by showing that
police forces are not only ‘‘law-enforcing’’ but also ‘‘law-making’’ institutions.
Also considering that it is a highly challenging task to conduct research on policing
in a country with an authoritarian past and present, Go¨nen’s ethnographic study
deserves utmost credit. Still, a few remarks can be made to encourage further
thinking. To begin, I would have preferred to see a more critical engagement
with the concept of neoliberalism. Significant variations aside, the pervasive
strength of the neoliberal ideology is surely phenomenal. Yet, indicators such as
public social spending or social protection expenditures actually display a steady
growth in a large number of countries including Turkey, next to powerful trends
towards labor market insecurity and privatization. This has already led to a vibrant
debate on welfare retrenchment vis a vis welfare resilience. Hence, it would be
interesting to discuss the politics of crime with a more nuanced perspective on
the different faces of neoliberalisms. Particular assumptions of the book on
police and crime could also be elaborated further. For instance, even though the
book concentrates on common crimes, its conceptualization of crime as such seems
to be rather inclusive. How notions such as white-collar crime, crimes of the power-
ful or hate crime would fit in to the author’s definition of crime is an intriguing
question. Contrary to what has been argued (p. 101), lastly, I doubt that ‘‘policing
as service’’ can be readily attributed to the neoliberal ideology. Scholarly debate on
the history of policing suggests that this idea existed much earlier than the rise of
neoliberalism. These considerations notwithstanding, this book stands out as a
compelling read on the intricate relationship between policing, urbanization and
racialized poverty as building blocks of the politics of crime.
Kıvanc¸ Atak
Department of Criminology, Stockholm University, Sweden
Mona Lynch, Hard Bargains: The Coercive Power of Drug Laws in Federal Court,...
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