LAW-AND-ORDER POLICY AND THE SPACES OF CITIZENSHIP IN CONTEMPORARY BRITAIN

The British Conservative Party has consistently portrayed itself as 't he party of law and order' but, despite high levels of investment in t he criminal justice system since 1979, crime and disorder show no sign s of diminishing. Against this background, this paper uses policy docu ments and debates in the House of Commons to examine key elements of t he post-1979 Conservative Governments' law and order policy programme. This programme, which draws inspiration from both the neo-liberal and neo-conservative strands of New Right doctrine, has important implica tions for the meaning of citizenship in Britain. The first part of the paper examines law and order policies which are creating spaces withi n which responsibility for the prevention of crime and the maintenance of order shifts from the state to civil society, a strategy by which the Government intends to foster citizenship by enhancing a sense of i ndividual responsibility for the welfare of community. The second part of the paper, by contrast, focuses on particular pieces of recent leg islation which allow increased penetration of civil society by the sta te, a development Government critics argue erodes citizenship by circu mscribing the spaces within which people can act unhindered by politic al interference.