Crime and the Global City

In recent years social scientists have been interested in the growth and
transformation of global cities. These metropolises, which function as key command centers
in global production networks, manifest many of the social, economic, and political tensions
and inequities of neoliberal globalization. Their international appeal as sites of financial
freedom and free trade frequently obscures the global city underbelly: practices of labor
exploitation, racial discrimination, and migrant deferral. This chapter explores some of these
global tensions, showing how they have shaped the strategies and technologies behind urban
crime prevention, security, and policing. In particular we show how certain populations
perceived as risky become treated as (pre)criminals: individuals in need of management and
control before any criminal behavior has occurred. We demonstrate further how the
production of the pre-criminal can lead to dispossession, delay, and detention as well as to
increasing gentrification and violence.