What is Governing through Violence?

Jonathan Simon will be visiting our class on Wednesday, February 23rd. By now you should have a sense of what he means when he says we are being “governed through violent crime.” In short, it’s that over the past half century or so, we have built a new social order and approach to government that revolves around the issue of violent crime, usually conceived of as an individual act committed mostly by members of marginalized groups against each other and against members of more privileged groups.
For your writing assignment this week:
Find something in the 24 minute video Violence: Mass Incarceration, the ’60s, and the Racialization of Violent Crime ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk7-4zAHPKs&t=137s) that you believe helps explain this concept.
In at least 3-5 sentences, describe how it explains or illustrates the idea of “governing through violent crime.”
Include at least one direct quote or reference to a specific part of the video.
Use ASA formatting for in-text citations, inserting timestamps in place of page numbers so we can find the part of the vide you are referencing.
E.g., Simon (2016) says that there are “features” of homicide that are socially constructed, but that it’s not a socially constructed problem, and you can’t call it a “moral panic” because when people are upset about homicide, “they have a reason to be upset” (8:20)