Law and Order Leviathan: America’s Extraordinary Regime of Policing and Punishment

In this intriguing study, political economist Garland (The Peculiar Institution) tries to reconcile why it is that though American crime rates have steadily decreased since the 1980s, the public demand for “law and order” has made a resurgence in the past few years. Garland takes as a starting point the peculiarity of America’s response to Covid-19—he notes that among developed nations, only the U.S. experienced increased rates of accidents and spikes in violent crime during the pandemic. He also notes that despite the popular support of the George Floyd protests, a pro-police backlash and crime scare followed in subsequent years. These factors lead Garland toward a structural explanation of a unique American system of economic racism. In his view, the economic structure, with its limited opportunities for the poor, is arranged such that, relative to the rest of the developed world, “extraordinary levels of lethal violence” and criminality are indeed “a feature of life” for people of color. (Something leftists would do well not to deny, he argues.) One example of how this structure is maintained is the country’s unrivaled access to firearms. Through comparative examples to France, Canada, and other countries, he persuasively makes his case for America’s violent exceptionalism. The result is a striking challenge to both conservative and liberal perspectives on crime and policing. (Aug.)