National Security's Broken Windows

Abstract

This Article examines the federal government's community engagement efforts with American Muslim communities as part of a larger infrastructure for policing radicalization and countering violent extremism (CVE). While the federal government presents community engagement as a softer alternative to policing, community engagement is integrated into a larger policing apparatus, making the reality far more coercive. Community engagement efforts are staged within the greater context of radicalization discourse, counterradicalization and CVE programs. Radicalization theory posits that increased religiosity and politicization in Muslims provokes an increased threat of terrorism. Government counterradicalization programs aim, therefore, to monitor and influence the political and religious cultures of Muslim communities so as to prevent radicalization, bringing tremendous scrutiny to bear on these communities.The federal government situates its national security community engagement efforts within the history of community policing in the ordinary criminal context. Community engagement and community policing are celebrated as forms of policing that emphasize communication and collaboration with marginalized communities and serve ideals of inclusion and democratic participation. In both contexts, however, efforts at policecommunity communication and collaboration are warped by law enforcement's commitments to preventive theories of crime control, narrowing the space for the inclusion of and democratic contestation by the subject communities. Broken windows theory and radicalization theory invest local social and cultural norms an outsized role in the origination of criminal activity, creating a rationale for the policing of everyday life. In linking noncriminal activity to the potential for crime, both theories reinforce a punitive lens through which police interact with communities, further marginalizing communities on the grounds of their difference. In putting community engagement in conversation with community policing, this Article's central insight is as straightforward as it might be surprising: Community engagement in the national security context shares some of the problems of community policing in the ordinary criminal context. Community engagement efforts increase the presence of law enforcement in already overpoliced communities, and exacerbate intracommunity inequalities. Rather than enhance participation, community engagement may simply provide opportunities for select members of Muslim communities to approve preexisting law enforcement commitments-and create an additional source of pressure on Muslim communities to perform their Americanness-without meaningful openings for Muslim communities to communicate, collaborate, and contest the relationship, its modalities, and its outputs.UcLA LAW rEVIEW 62 UCLA L. Rev. 834 (2015)

Deracialization, Dissent, and Terrorism in the FBI’s Most Wanted Program

“…The FBI is an important site for the study of race and terrorism because of its role in producing terrorism materially and ideologically. The FBI uses informants whereby the bureau first creates and then thwarts an attempted attack, it conducts surveillance of communities and organizations it suspects have connections to terrorism, and it has extrajudicially killed individuals who it suspects have connections to terrorism (Akbar 2015;Aziz 2017;Shamas and Arastu n.d.). As a key producer and distributor of representations of terrorism in the form of wanted posters, the bureau is a valuable site for understanding the ideological wing in the war on terror in relation to its material reality.…”

The Community in Criminal Justice

“…After 9/11, Muslim Americans, particularly those of Middle Eastern or North African descent, have drawn intense attention from law enforcement under the guise of counterterrorism. The FBI’s “community engagement” policing strategy aimed at Muslim communities (Akbar 2015; Aziz 2014; Harris 2010), along with police profiling of those perceived as Muslim (Ahmad 2004; Beydoun 2018), are further manifestations of the expanded analogical reach of criminal justice techniques to an identifiable and institutionally maligned group that need further probing. Additional research might especially focus on community members’ interpretations and experiences with counterterrorism policing and surveillance.…”

The Production of Acceptable Muslim Women in the United States

“…On a global level, this is how much of North America, Europe, and Australia have responded to the events of September 11, 2001, namely, through a domestic and global politics of national security. In effect, national security policies are a politics of legal, social, and cultural containment through which the Western world has mounted an ever‐increasing challenge to Muslims’ cultural and religious commitments, understood as a necessary political defense against “Islamic terrorism” (Akbar ; Beydoun ) . As such, to subscribe visibly to Islam is to always already be a problem .…”

“…See the troubling cases of Sami Al‐Arian and Amina Mohamud Esse (González and Goodman ; Forliti ). Many other Muslim men and women were subject to counterterrorism enforcement through various policies taken up in the interests of national security (Akbar ; Maira ; Beydoun ).…”