Criminology and Criminal Justice Journal Lecture for 2013

‘Space and Time in the Governance of Crime and Security’, by Professor Mariana Valverde, University of Toronto.

‘Space and Time in the Governance of Crime and Security’

By Professor Mariana Valverde, University of Toronto

The respondents for Professor Valverde’s lecture will be Professor David Nelken, University of Macerata; Professor Gill Valentine, University of Sheffield (tbc); and DrSarah Armstrong, University of Glasgow.

The lecture will be followed by a wine reception.

The event is co-sponsored by the British Society of Criminology and the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies.

• RSVP Julia Ishola on 0113 3432711 or J.H.Ishola@leeds.ac.uk

Flyer

• Flyer for the event [PDF: 1MB]

Abstract

That security projects - including crime prevention techniques - often work ‘on space’ and ‘through space’ is now well known, and demonstrated by a growing interaction between geography and criminology. Temporality, however, while currently the subject of much attention in legal historiography and philosophy, has received little or no attention in criminology and empirical sociolegal studies.

Building upon a critique of the (over)emphasis on space and spatial governance in our understanding of contemporary responses to crime and (in)security, Professor Valverde uses several concrete criminological examples to argue that a theoretical synthesis of work on spatial scale and temporal scale can be of great benefit for future empirical studies of the governance of crime and security.

Mariana Valverde is Professor of Criminology in the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto, and a world renowned expert in social and legal theory, criminology and socio-legal studies, and historical sociology. In 1998, Professor Valverde published a major work entitled Diseases of the Will: Alcohol and the Dilemmas of Freedom which was critically acclaimed and for which she was given the Herbert Jacob Award "for a major contribution to sociolegal scholarship" from the American Law and Society Association.

In 2011, Professor Valverde published a widely cited article in Theoretical Criminology on “Questions of Security” which mapped out a novel framework for analysing security projects through their different logics, scales, jurisdictions, and techniques. This theoretical work on security is complemented by her recent comparative research on the history of urban planning and urban policing, with a focus on how cities have used a variety of tools to separate 'good' from 'bad' neighbourhoods, particularly in the century of the suburb (i.e. the 1870s to the 1970s). A widely cited article based on this research called "Seeing like a city" appeared in the Law and Society Review in 2011.

A new project will explore the ways in which public-private partnerships are used to build urban infrastructure and urban amenities. In the fall of 2012, the University of Chicago Press published Professor Valverde's latest book, Everyday law on the street: city governance and the challenges of diversity, which was based upon five years of empirical and legal research on how cities use the various legal tools at their disposal (e.g. zoning laws, business licensing, and vending bylaws).

Location Details

The School of Law
The Liberty Building
University of Leeds
Leeds
LS2 9JT

The Liberty Building is number 16 on the campus map.