The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary SocietyA group of individuals connected by shared institutions, culture, and norms. (2001) is one of the central works of contemporary critical criminology. The British sociologist David Garland analyzes the fundamental transformation of Western penal and security policies since the 1970s. His central thesis: we live in a “culture of control” characterized by insecurity, punitiveness (from Latin punire = to punish, to avenge), and institutional mistrust — and this culture is itself an expression of deeper social structural changes.
Social Context and Theoretical Framework
Garland’s analysis begins at a historical tipping point: since the 1970s, the liberal post-war order has transitioned into a new form of “governing crime.” In Britain and the United States — and later in many other Western societies — a “crisis of penal modernism” emerged: faith in rehabilitation, individualization, and welfare-state integration lost ground. In its place, new strategies of deterrence, security production, and risk management took hold.
Garland’s approach aligns with Michel Foucault’s governmentality framework: penal policy is seen not just as an instrument of coercion but as part of broader rationalities of governing populations, where self-responsibility, risk, and control intersect.
Controversy: “Nothing Works”
In the 1970s, American criminologist Robert Martinson published an influential meta-study on the effectiveness of rehabilitation programs in US prisons. The results were sobering: most programs showed no measurable effect on recidivism rates. His conclusion — which he later partly retracted — was: “Nothing works.”
This thesis was widely taken up by the media, politics, and public discourse, contributing significantly to the delegitimization of rehabilitative penal concepts. Instead of prioritizing rehabilitation, penal policy in the US and UK increasingly focused on deterrence, incapacitation, and control. Garland’s concept of the “CultureThe shared symbols, beliefs, values, and practices of a group or society. of Control” cannot be understood without this debate — it marks a crucial turning point in the history of penal policy.
Garland connects this development with deep social transformations: economic restructuring, the crisis of the welfare state, rising social inequality, and changing forms of governance. He understands punishment not as an isolated legal tool but as a cultural medium that reveals underlying power relations and political rationalities in society.
Key Points
The Culture of Control by David Garland
Main Proponent: David Garland
First Published: 2001
Country: United Kingdom / USA
Key Idea/Assumption: Shift from welfare-oriented penal policy to a culture of control that manages insecurity, predicts risk, and uses punitiveness as a societal response to perceived loss of control.
Key Terms: Culture of Control, Punitiveness, Risk Society, Responsibilizing Strategies, Mass IncarcerationThe large-scale imprisonment of a population, often reflecting systemic social and economic inequalities.
Central Theses
David Garland describes the rise of a new penal culture defined by a combination of control technologies, public punitiveness, and individualizing responsibility policies. The liberal penal policy of the post-war era — characterized by rehabilitation, professional expertise, and welfare-state support — was undermined in the context of broader social transformations.
It was replaced by a “Culture of Control” defined by the following elements:
- Punitiveness: Harsher penalties, law-and-order rhetoric, populist demand for punishment
- Risk Governance: Identifying, predicting, and managing potential threats
- Responsibilization: Shifting responsibility for security onto citizens, families, and neighborhoods
- Technocratic Control: Use of predictive policing, actuarial justice, CCTVClosed-circuit television used for monitoring and surveillance.
- Mass Incarceration: Exponential growth in prison populations, especially in the US
Twelve Characteristics of a Punitive Turn
Garland identifies twelve key features of this new penal culture:
- Decline of RehabilitationThe process of reintegrating offenders into society and preventing further criminal behavior through education, treatment, and support. (rehabilitative goals fade in favor of incapacitation, deterrence, and public safety)
- Return of “Primitive” Sanctions and Expressive Justice (e.g. life sentences without parole, mandatory minimums, blanket sentencing policies as “symbolic justice”)
- Changes in the Emotional Tone of Crime PolicyStrategies and measures adopted by governments to prevent, control, and sanction crime. (rhetoric of toughness, enemy-criminal model, militarized campaigns like the War on DrugsGovernment-led campaign aiming to reduce drug use and trade through criminalization and policing.)
- Return of the Victim (victim interests at the center of penal debates, e.g. laws like Megan’s LawU.S. legislation requiring public access to information about registered sex offenders.; punishments justified through satisfaction and symbolic representation of victims’ rights)
- Protection from vs. Protection by the StateThe political institution that holds legitimate authority over a defined territory. (shift from safeguarding civil liberties to prioritizing comprehensive state protection — even at the cost of individual rights)
- Politicization and Populism (crime becomes a permanent political topic, bipartisan punitive consensus, sidelining of expert knowledge in favor of populist measures and media-driven outrage)
- Renaissance of the PrisonA prison is a secure institution where individuals are confined by the state as a form of punishment, pretrial detention, or social control. (dramatic rise in incarceration rates, expansion of prison capacity and private facilities, e.g. Three StrikesLaws imposing life sentences after a third serious criminal conviction. Laws)
- Transformation of CriminologyThe scientific study of crime, criminal behavior, prevention, and societal reactions to deviance within and beyond the criminal justice system. (shift from structural-societal explanations to individualizing and behavioral offender research)
- Expansion of Crime Prevention and Local SecurityProtection from threats, harm, or danger. Policies (e.g. public-private partnerships, local safety councils, neighborhood surveillance strategies)
- Civil and Commercial Actors in CrimeActs or omissions that violate criminal laws and are punishable by the state. Control (growing role of non-state actors such as private security firms, neighborhood watches, commercial surveillance providers)
- New Management Methods of Crime Control (introduction of performance indicators for police and justice systems, e.g. CompStat in New York, widespread Zero-Tolerance strategies, output-oriented public safety agencies)
- Permanent Crisis Consciousness (maintenance of a latent state of emergency through media sensationalism, continuous tough-on-crime legislation, and politically constructed “threat scenarios”)
While many of these features (such as punitiveness, expressive justice, or mass incarceration) point to increasingly authoritarian control, Garland also notes alternative developments — particularly in the form of adaptive strategies visible in local crime prevention approaches.
Example: Megan’s Law
Megan’s Law is US federal legislation introduced in 1996, named after Megan Kanka, a seven-year-old girl who was murdered in 1994 by a convicted sex offender. The law requires authorities to make information about convicted sex offenders publicly accessible.
Megan’s Law exemplifies the punitive turn of the 1990s: penal policy increasingly centered on victim protection and risk prevention. The emotional impact of individual cases served as a basis for legitimizing broad surveillance, registration, and public stigmatization of entire offender groups. Critics argue that such laws may create a sense of symbolic security but have little actual preventive effect — while undermining principles of proportionality and rehabilitation in the rule of law.
Empirical Measurability: How to Measure Punitiveness?
Garland’s concept of a “culture of control” is not just theoretical but can also be empirically examined. Social science research offers systematic ways to operationalize punitiveness as a measurable societal dimension.
A well-known proposal from critical criminology (Lautmann & Klimke, 2004) distinguishes several levels of analysis:
- Individual level: Public desire for harsh punishment and reporting behavior (e.g. survey data on sentencing severity or willingness to report offenses)
- Societal level: Media coverage of crime and security policy statements in election platforms and public debates
- Judicial level: Prosecutorial charging practices, sentencing trends, and prison population developments
- Executive level: PoliceA state institution responsible for maintaining public order, enforcing laws, and preventing crime. powers, scope of surveillance technologies, structure of the penal system (e.g. high-security prisons, prisoner privileges)
- Legislative level: Introduction of new offenses, sentence enhancements, and legislative rationales (e.g. Three Strikes Laws, Megan’s Law, Truth in Sentencing)
These indicators enable a nuanced understanding of the cultural and political climate surrounding deviance. They show that punitiveness is not simply expressed in incarceration rates or harsher laws but must be understood as a complex social dynamic — deeply intertwined with media, politics, and security institutions.
Responsibilization and Prevention Partnerships
A key distinction in Garland’s analysis lies in differentiating between a sovereign state strategy and an adaptive strategy. The former emphasizes intensified crime control, mass incarceration, and expressive punishment. The latter is characterized by prevention, cooperation, and decentralization. The so-called “responsibilizing strategy” seeks to shift responsibility for security onto individuals, communities, and local actors.
This adaptive logic is especially visible in urban security approaches such as community policing, public space video surveillance, or urban crime prevention through environmental design. Here, security is no longer exclusively guaranteed by state agencies but is framed as a collectively produced good — achieved through neighborhood initiatives, architectural design, or cooperative policing strategies.
However, Garland argues that this shift is ambivalent: on the one hand, prevention partnerships allow for more community-oriented and context-sensitive security solutions. On the other hand, they often obscure structural causes of insecurity and shift social responsibility away from the state.
Relevance for Criminology and Penal Policy
Garland’s work offers an integrative theoretical framework for analyzing contemporary security policy developments. It combines criminological, sociological, and political-economic perspectives, showing how penal policy is intertwined with broader power relations in society. Particularly important is his concept of responsibilizing strategies: delegating responsibility to the individual appears as civic empowerment but is often an expression of the state’s retreat from social responsibility.
In academic discussions, Garland is often described as a pioneer of a “culturalized criminology” that understands crime and control as cultural narratives and symbolic practices. This makes his work highly relevant to Cultural CriminologyA perspective that studies crime and control as cultural products shaped by meaning, emotion, and symbolism. and related approaches.
At the same time, The Culture of Control serves as a key reference for political analyses of current security discourses — from “fear societies” to the legitimation of expanded police powers and the blurring of boundaries between welfare and penal states.
Culture as a Concept in Criminology
In criminology, culture does not simply mean “high culture” or “subcultures,” but refers to the symbolic orders, meaning systems, and everyday practices through which crime is socially constructed, interpreted, and controlled.
Influential approaches such as Cultural Criminology (e.g. Presdee, Ferrell, Hayward) emphasize that crime does not simply exist objectively but is culturally staged — through media images, emotional narratives, or visual representations. DevianceDeviance refers to behaviors, beliefs, or characteristics that violate social norms and provoke negative social reactions. is understood as a cultural expression reflecting social conflict, power relations, and collective fears.
As early as the 1970s, Stuart Hall et al. in Policing the Crisis showed how crime discourses — such as the so-called “mugging” phenomenon — were politically constructed and media-amplified. Penal policy here appears not as a rational reaction to “real” threats but as part of ideological struggles over order, authority, and social control.
Against this backdrop, Garland’s concept of a “Culture of Control” can also be situated: it is not just about formal institutions of crime control but about a deep cultural reorganization of societal perceptions of security.
Conclusion
David Garland’s The Culture of Control is a milestone in contemporary criminology. It reveals the close interconnections between social change, political culture, and the rationalities underpinning security policy. The return to retributive punishment, expansion of police powers, and the externalization of social problems onto “deviant” groups are not seen as policy failures but as expressions of a cultural shift in managing insecurity and social disintegration.
The strength of the work lies in its complexity: it does not offer a simplistic critique but a historically grounded and analytically nuanced mapping of contemporary penal strategies. For sociology, criminology, social policy, and critical social analysis, Garland’s book remains an essential point of reference.
References
- Garland, D. (2001). The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Garland, D. (1985). Punishment and Welfare: A History of Penal Strategies. Aldershot: Gower.
- De Giorgi, A. (2006). Re-thinking the Political Economy of Punishment. Aldershot: Ashgate.
- Harcourt, B. (2011). The Illusion of Free Markets. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
- Lautmann, R. & Klimke, D. (2004). Punitivität als Schlüsselbegriff für eine Kritische Kriminologie. In: Lautmann, R., Klimke, D. & Sack, F. (Hrsg.): Punitivität. Achtes Beiheft zum Kriminologischen Journal, Weinheim, S. 9-29
- Wacquant, L. (2009). Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. Durham: Duke University Press.
