The public is a powerful political actor when it comes to the question of what is to be done about law and order. Therefore, public attitudes towards punishment are of central importance to criminological inquiry. Research in this area has tended towards national (comparative) accounts of 'punitive attitudes' and, in an effort to explore correlates of punitive attitudes, particular sub-groups have been examined often based on certain demographic characteristics such as, for instance, race, gender and/or age. However, very little research exists exploring urban and rural variations in punitive attitudes. Yet, considering that populations may be widely dispersed from central metropolitan and urban areas to rural, regional and very remote areas, it is reasonable to assume that ecological factors and aspects of cultural geography impact upon punitive attitudes. To comparatively examine punitive attitudes across geographical areas, this study draws on cross-sectional data (2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015) derived from the Canadian Elections Study (CES). Specifically, the research employs a multidimensional measurement of punitive attitudes by exploring geographic variations in respondents' attitudes towards: (i) the goals of punishment; (ii) the intensity of penal sanctions; and (iii) specified forms of penal sanctions. The sum of the data is then drawn together to develop an index of punitivity, thereby providing a more holistic understanding of punitive attitudes. The findings indicate that on each measure the rural holds significantly greater punitive attitudes than the urban. The article concludes by considering theoretical explanations for these differences, of which future research should attend, with particular attention to the shared political logic between penal populism and political populism and how this contributes to the urban/rural divide as one of the greatest political fault lines in present day politics.
Most public and scholarly debate about immigration in Australia has focused on irregular arrivals of asylum seekers by sea and the harsh system of externalised border controls designed to deter and contain them. This paper concentrates on the operation of Australia’s internal borders. We present a critical account of onshore migration policing networks in the Australian state of New South Wales, which are conceptualised as a distinctive form of policing. Using the techniques of nodal cartography described by Johnston and Shearing (2003) we identify the institutions, mentalities and technologies driving the development of migration policing networks and discuss their structure and internal dynamics. We then examine the means by which chains of public and private actors are recruited to perform a migration policing role, drawing on Garland’s ideas about government-at-a-distance (Garland, 1997). We identify responsibilising strategies that capitalise on overlapping organisational interests, others that are underpinned by the threat of legal sanctions, and others that are directed towards changing the behaviour of unlawful non-citizens themselves. We conclude that the Australian state is not diminished by adopting a networked approach to onshore migration policing, but instead garners significant resources which it can then invest in the construction of a multi-faceted, structurally-embedded and potentially ubiquitous border.
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