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This article discusses a risk society discourse and its utility for critical criminological research in Canada. The risk information superstructure might be considered amoral because it is often digital and impersonal. To the contrary, these practices have been described by risk theorists as highly moral because they reflect the institutionally encoded norms and expectations of society. Risk also becomes symbolic. Central to risk society theory is its perpetually escalating character. The actuarial forms endemic to a risk society are especially widespread throughout the criminal justice system. In the first instance, governmentality means that penal institutions and policing organizations become fragmented as the monopoly of the state in matters of social control is diffused amongst a wide constellation of public and private sectors. Evidence of this can be found in the privatization of corrections and policing, where insurance practices are ordered in very similar ways. That is, the actuarial logics of social order are just as likely to migrate from the public to the private sphere as they are to be adopted by public agencies at the behest of private institutional needs. It is argued that many of the mobilizing logics of the public police are borrowed directly from private security.

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Copyright of Canadian Journal of Criminology is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)