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The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the turn to risk within sociology and to survey the relationship between structure and agency as conceived by popular strands of risk theorizing. To this end, we appraise the risk society, culture of fear and governmentality perspectives and we consider the different imaginings of the citizen constructed by each of these approaches. The paper goes on to explore what each of these visions of citizenship implies for understandings of the structure/agency dynamic as it pertains to the question of reflexivity. In order to transcend uni-dimensional notions of citizenship and to reinvigorate sociological debates about risk, we call for conceptual analyses that are contextually rooted. Exampling the importance of knowledge contests around contemporary security threats and warnings of the deleterious effects of pre-emptive modes of regulation that derive from the 'risk turn' within social science, we argue for a more nuanced embrace of reflexivity within risk theorising in order to facilitate a more dynamic critique of the images of citizenship that such theorizing promotes.

The limits of inter-agency understandings of risk in the context of intimate partner violence are well documented. Informed by Hester's (2011) 'three planet' analogy and using empirical data in one police force area in the south of England, this paper offers an exploration of intraagency operations, focusing on police risk assessment practices. Exploring the policing risk lens and the victim-survivor journey together, findings highlight police operate with at least three risk assessment moments (call hander, front-line and Safeguarding Hub) and point to the tensions that result when failing to centralise victim-survivors' own assessment of their risk. Using complexity theory, this paper examines the complex interplay of risk that occurs when the victim-survivor risk journey intersects with the policing aspect of the criminal justice process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the rise of third sector agencies as key criminal justice providers within the context of the marketization of probation and other crime management responses. We posit that the ‘rehabilitation revolution’ has significant implications for the voluntary and community sector in particular and criminal justice provision in general. Pointing towards incremental colonization of the third sector by criminal justice concerns, we trace the creeping discourse of economic risk, exemplified by the commodification of provision, increased contractualization of services and the application of cost–benefit measures. We argue that government policy is being driven by a behavioural economics of risk that attempts to ‘nudge’ the sector in discrete directions through the use of incentivization, market competition and steers toward entrepreneurship. In such a context, the position of marginal groups with high needs but potentially poorer outcomes may be perilous, consigning high risk and ‘at-risk’ groups to further exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the auspices of the ‘war against terrorism’, New Labour’s period of political governance in the UK was characterized by an activist, pre-emptive approach to (inter)national security. This approach was domestically embedded in specific counter-terrorism measures such as extensions to detention without charge, the expansion of stop and search measures and the deployment of control orders. Situated in this context, this article analyses the reflections of a group of young British Pakistani Muslims living in the north-west of England. First, we detail the process of risk subjectification through which institutional labelling narrowly defines Muslims as threatening and dangerous. Second, we consider the consolidation of practices of self-surveillance through which young Muslims seek to protect themselves and deflect stigmatization. In conclusion, we suggest that counter-terrorism policies have succeeded in reproducing a state of partial securities in and through which certain groups are protected and ‘others’ exposed to scrutiny and hostility. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this article is to examine the ways in which studies of criminal victimization have contributed to this presumption of human vulnerability, and to examine the potential in understandings of resilience for overcoming this presumption. In order to do this the argument falls into three parts. In the first part I shall consider the different ways in which victimization and vulnerability have been linked together. In the second I shall examine the concept of resilience and its relationship, if any, with vulnerability and victimization. Throughout this discussion I shall draw on feminist informed work as a way of suggesting a differently oriented approach to both of these concepts: presented here as thinking otherwise. In the final and concluding part of this article the implications of contemporary understandings of these concepts will be situated within the broader policy context characterized by Aradau (2004) as informed by a ‘politics of pity’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The central purpose of this article is to trace the conflicting co-existence of three narratives in relation to the ‘risk society’ and the practices that it engenders. The first of these narratives is theoretical: the problems and possibilities of the risk society thesis. The second is practical: how the concept of risk has been translated into policy and practice in the form of risk assessment tools for both ‘at risk’ offenders and ‘at risk’ victims. The focus in this narrative will be on criminal justice responses to violence in general with particular emphasis on responses to partner violence. The third narrative focuses on ‘real lives’: the experiential. Here attention will be paid to what is it that is, or is not, captured by the first two narratives. The concern will be to illustrate the extent to which the discordance that can be found between these three narratives reveals much about the risks of politics and the politics of risk. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the events of 11 September 2001, Muslim minority groups have been subjected to pervasive scrutiny in the United Kingdom. The 7 July 2005 attacks have led to young Muslims’ being party to intensified modes of monitoring, surveillance and intervention by crime and security agencies. The introduction of multiple forms of counter-terrorism regulation by the state has been underpinned by discourses of (in)security, which have defined British Muslims en bloc as a risky, suspect population. Against this wider backdrop, this paper presents the findings from a study investigating the effects of these processes on young British Pakistanis in the North-West of England. Giving voice to these young people, we explore their responses to risk-victimization and articulate the impacts of legal and cultural regulation both on the management of Muslim identities and performances of safety in the public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, we explore the ways in which cross-disciplinary theories of risk can enable us to grasp salient issues that arise out of the construction, assessment and regulation of terrorism in contemporary society. First, we demonstrate how risk society theory can be utilized to unpack the changing nature of terrorism. Second, deploying Furedi's work on the culture of fear, we show how the discourse of terrorism nestles into a broader politics of risk that is disproportionately directing economic and political policies and encouraging a climate of public anxiety. Third, utilizing the tools of the governmentality perspective, the linkages between measures designed to combat the terrorist threat and authoritarian domestic law and order policies are elucidated. We go on to analyse the contents and practices of the 'war on terror', arguing that the offensive and pre-emptive strategies that it legitimates are wedded to a creeping shift in risk assessment from retrospective estimations of harm to an outlook based on futurity. It is posited that this shift ushers in a number of contradictions and dilemmas around the political deployment of discourses of risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In July 2004, the U.K. Government launched an 8.3 million pound campaign to inform the public about how to respond to emergency situations, disseminating an advice booklet to 25 million households. The specified objective of the campaign was to relay information about what members of the public should do to prepare for major emergencies, such as a terrorist attack. Although the booklet provides generic advice about a range of emergency situations, at the time of distribution, media and political attention became firmly fixed on the sections containing information about chemical, biological and radiological (CBR) strikes. In this paper, we present the findings of questionnaire-based research into public perceptions of emergency advice. Based on responses from 116 participants, we reflect on the efficacy of Government communications, the impact of the advice booklet on behavioural intentions and the fit between interpretations of the guidance offered and wider attitudes towards terrorism. Qualitative methods of analysis are deployed to explore individual fears about terrorism and collective levels of trust in Government. Our research raises prescient questions about future communication strategies and public policy making. Drawing upon risk society and governmentality perspectives, the paper examines the extent to which citizens are responding to Government information and the way in which the individualization of the terrorist risk meshes with an extant process of responsibilization articulated through policies on crime control, security and welfare. In conclusion, we outline the potentialities and the pitfalls of a burgeoning politics of risk that appears to be driving contemporary policy initiatives in the U.K.Security Journal (2007) 20, 77–95. doi:10.1057/palgrave.sj.8350017 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, Madrid and London, state agencies have been bound up with the problem of how to effectively communicate the risk of terrorism to the general public. This article charts the UK government's attempts to engage in this process and illustrates how the communication of the terrorist risk meshes into broader cultural formations of crime and (in)security. Our analytical framework utilizes the risk society as the scene in which governmental strategies are parcelled up and unpacked. It is posited that the framing of the terrorist problem through the political discourse of 'new terrorism' has built upon and escalated a cultural climate of fear and uncertainty. At the level of political communication, it will be elucidated that media representations of the terrorist threat have served to further embed discourses of responsibilization. In our view such processes not only articulate a reduced notion of safety, they also pave the way for the simplistic construction of a non-white 'terroristic other' that has negative consequences for ethnic minority groups in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs that it is now commonplace to discuss the contemporary social condition by reference to the risk society thesis. In the view of some commentators, the contemporary condition transcends questions of risk in favor of a discourse that embraces questions of morality and precaution. Yet much remains to be understood about the nature and impact of the risk society thesis, not only as it permeates public understandings, but also as it infiltrates public policy processes or their impact. The purpose of this article is to explore a deeper analysis and to offer an understanding of the current imagining of the crime victim as a source of citizenship and of oppressive citizenship.

The central purpose of this article is to offer a critical examination of the fear of crime debate and to suggest a different conceptual framework through which what might be called the fear of crime might be understood. A critical appreciation of fear as the other, fear as rational/irrational, fear as safety and fear as anxiety will be offered. It will be argued that none of these ways of exploring the concept of fear has resonance with the experiences of those living in high crime areas where questions of trust seem to have a greater salience. Indeed it is through an exploration of the concept of trust, and its underlying generative mechanisms, here suggested as the state, the (dis)organization of crime, the (dis)organization of community and finally processes of sociability, that expressed concerns about crime might be better understood. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses how risk is being utilised in the development of policies on crime control and criminal justice. It states that although risk has been a key factor in crime regulation, the anticipatory dimensions of risk seem to have been increased in recent years. It mentions that although some terrorist groups present a threat to public safety, it is necessary to identify if the degree of intervention, surveillance and regulation is proportionate with the risk of harm.