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Pre-crime, Post-criminology, and the Captivity of Ultramodern Desire

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Abstract

This article further elaborates on the “pre-crime society” thesis as developed and examined by Arrigo and Sellers. Specifically, the article focuses on the ultramodern era of digital inter-connectivity and argues that productive psychic desire is held clinically captive. Ultra-modernity is populated by cyber-forms of human relating and of economic exchange that nurture hyper-securitization. We discuss how the maintenance of hyper-securitization supports a pre-crime society, and how hyper-securitization’s object of desire consists of sign-optics (i.e., panopticism, synopticism, and banopticism). We argue that the co-constitutive forces (i.e., relational flows and fluctuations) of this desire represent the sign-exchange values of post-criminology. Post-criminology’s signifiers include, among others, “predictive policing”, “crime mapping”, and “actuarial penology.” Post-criminology’s signifieds (re)produce captivity-generating bio-digital “laws” of human relatedness. Among others, these laws sanction the neurosis of de-vitalization and certify the psychosis of finalization. We explain how the unchecked excess neutralizations of de-vitalization and finalization cultivate clinical captivity. Clinical captivity is a social anxiety in which reciprocal consciousness, inter-subjectivity, and mutual power are limited in existence (the reduction of inter-relatedness) or are denied an existence (the repression of inter-relatedness).

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Notes

  1. This is a reference to the metaphysics of presence. See, [23].

  2. The term “sign-optics” is our own. As we subsequently make evident, the term is sourced in the integrative insights of Foucault on the panoptic, Mathiesen on the synoptic, and Bigo on the banoptic dimensions of surveillance and society.

  3. See Footnote 1.

  4. PJ’s approach to radicalizing subjectivity is derived, in part, from continental philosophy. The continental tradition of philosophy rejects reliance on the empirics of positivism as the legitimate basis by which to explain the complexities and contradictions of human experience. Moreover, continental thought emphasizes historicism (i.e., the importance of symbols and signs, languages and codes, practices and customs) as a preferred method by which to account for forms of identity-claiming, knowledge production, and meaning-making. Still further, it locates prospects for human social change (e.g., shared restoration and collective transformation) within the unconscious and its libidinal and political–economic production and liberation (i.e., de-territorialization and re-territorialization. And finally, this tradition recognizes the socio-cultural embeddedness of medicine, law, education, and other disciplinary domains as sites of discursive contestation and dynamic normalization, especially within systems of institutional governance and organizational decision-making. We note, therefore, that the radical philosophy of PJ concerns itself with macro-level questions applied to micro-level interactions, ceremonially reenacted and ritually reproduced through system-level forces. These are the questions of consciousness, subjectivity, and power. These are the interactions of relational being and associational meaning. These are the system-level forces that populate spaces of coexistence.

  5. Analytical frameworks that problematize, investigate, and/or critique the relations of humanness reveal both the ontic complexion and epistemic composition of shared human experience in various realms of coexistence. Among others, these realms of cohabitation consist of schools, prisons, hospitals, worksites, and even communities in which the life mining tools of dataveillance prevail.

  6. See Footnote 1.

  7. Adorno’s negative dialectics is not merely a Hegelian negation of a negation. Instead, Adorno posits that novel truth claims and developing epistemologies emerge by denoting the parameters of existing knowledge itself. Thus, thought processes can (and should) be subject to recurring dialectical critique.

  8. Dialogic expression is “unfinalizable” in that it is always incomplete, in-process, and productive of further response sequences. In this respect, then, dialogical meaning is never static or closed, and its teleology is directed toward each moment’s awaiting humanity (pp. 279–280).

  9. For instance, in 2020, China’s Social Credit Score System is expected to become functionally operational, and it will utilize mass surveillance, facial recognition technology, and big data analysis to socially sort and rank citizens based on their daily behaviors and social interactions, especially deviant or unlawful behaviors. It will be a single unified system intended to standardize the assessment of citizens’ and businesses’ economic and social reputation through a system-wide social credit score. The value of a person’s social credit score can increase or decrease based on the monitored behaviors one engages in on a daily basis. For instance, reckless driving, red-light violations, jaywalking, smoking in non-smoking zones, buying too many video games, disseminating fake news on social media, quarreling with your neighbor, failing to correctly sort one’s trash and recyclables, making hotel or restaurant reservations but not showing up, playing music too loud, and any other behaviors deemed antisocial, criminal, or disorderly will devalue one’s social credit score and lead to punishment. Examples of punishment include, banning a person from flying or taking a train, reducing one’s Internet speed, banning one’s children from the best schools, preventing one from promotion or employment in prestigious jobs or industries, banning one from prestigious hotels, taking away one’s pets, and being publically shamed as a bad citizen among other punishments. Likewise, good behaviors such as, donating blood, donating to charity, volunteering for community services, and the like will lead to increases in the value of one’s social credit score and the subsequent perks that follow, such as discounts on energy bills, better interest rates, more matches on dating websites, and be able to rent things without a deposit. This system is the personification of societal “dis-ease” whereby the values of prediction, precaution, and pre-emption are paramount, and the production of a responsibilized citizenry through hype-securitization and the training of bodies through bio-digital control are the byproduct of commonplace (co)existence as both creepy and criminal ([10], pp. 672–673; [71], pp. 159, 73).

  10. For example, data collected on student activities and behaviors for record keeping and documentation purposes can be evaluated by school authorities in comparison to official profiles. These evaluations assess “abnormal symptoms” of troublesome conduct related to students’ relationships, associations, actions, and interests. This data-mining of students’ data-doubles for psychological profiling purposes aims to identify potential signs of future violence and disruption. The intention is to determine which students present potential new threats in need of pre-emptive control or exclusion. As a form of resistance, students may use technologies (e.g., smartphones, social media, pen cameras, online websites, YouTube, etc.) to monitor those in authority as a form of sousveillance [6]. In addition, the infusion of neoliberal accountability and panoptic performativity measures to monitor the efficiency of educational outcomes (e.g., attendance and scores on standardized tests), has led to disciplinary efforts to control any and all forms of disruptive behaviors that may inhibit overall student performance on achievement indicators and render schools “underperforming.” Therefore, students, teachers, and failing schools are continuously under surveillance and inspection. Indeed, schools have transformed the regimentation of instruction. It now includes the bio-power of high stakes testing, the strict application of school documentation policies, and the utilization of harsh zero tolerance policies for anyone who does not adapt to the normalization processes of the new hyper-surveillance schools. These forms of hyper-securitization signify that everyone will become a would-be suspect to be monitored and controlled [6]. In the digital era of pre-emptive policing, we see similar dimensions of police/suspect-citizen/suspect interactions, whereby digital technologies (e.g., police body-worn cameras, tracking devices worn by juveniles, cell phones deployed for sousveillance purposes) perpetuate the mutual mistrust between the state and the citizenry [19].

  11. Consider the proliferation of algorithmic risk assessment tools at nearly every stage of the criminal justice system and even across a growing number of private and public industries. These tools are deployed in order to identify indicators of potential risk for negative outcomes and to classify those predicted risks by magnitude levels (e.g., low, moderate, or high risk) to be managed. We now see actuarial risk assessment tools being used for pretrial bail determinations, to inform judges of whether pretrial detention may be necessary (determining who is a flight risk), to determine sentence length, to make decisions about security level while incarcerated, to tailor treatments and interventions while incarcerated, and to make probation and parole determinations regarding levels of supervision and case management plans for reentry. Elsewhere, often on a systems scale level, insurance companies, credit card companies, food industries, pharmaceutical industries, organizations in the energy and utility industries, and healthcare providers utilize risk assessment tools. In these instances, the intention is to manage threats, maintain compliance with government regulations, and prioritize security initiative based on danger/hazard level. As a result, the pervasiveness of risk assessment as the digital computation of bodies helps to both redesign and redefine the new people-making in nearly every aspect of our lives.

  12. In this important respect, then, our diagnosis of hyper-securitization, including its pre-crime sign-optics and post-criminology sign-exchange values, reminds us of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” in book VII of The Republic. See [71]. In the cave, fragments of reality (e.g., partial truths, incomplete expressions of justice, and limited forms of the good) are taken up by those who inhabit this prison as authentic and robust manifestations of (co)existence.

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  1. University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, USA

    Bruce A. Arrigo

  2. Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, USA

    Brian Sellers & Jo Sostakas

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Arrigo, B.A., Sellers, B. & Sostakas, J. Pre-crime, Post-criminology, and the Captivity of Ultramodern Desire. Int J Semiot Law 33, 497–514 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-020-09719-4

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