Abstract

This article begins by tracing the emergence of ‘therapeutic surveillance’ as a new formula for neoliberal disciplinary power. It maps and interrogates the reconfiguration of a hybrid array of neoliberal rationalities and technologies for the penal governance of young people who offend. It then engages with the challenges posed by critical realists to the governmentality position by questioning how human agency can contest, subvert and resist the dystopian reach of ‘therapeutic surveillance’ in action. While ‘therapeutic surveillance’ is steeped in a disciplinary logic of individualization and responsibilization, we argue that it also opens the space for a more transformative youth penality to be articulated; one which challenges the constraints of structural disadvantage in the pursuit of social justice. The article concludes by arguing that newly emerging youth justice configurations which have appeared in response to dramatic cuts in public spending offer a plausible or transformative challenge to the regulatory logic of neoliberal youth penality.

DOI

10.1177/1362480619872262

Publication Date

2021-05-01

Publication Title

Theoretical Criminology

Volume

25

Issue

2

First Page

304

Last Page

324

ISSN

1362-4806

Embargo Period

2019-11-26

Organisational Unit

School of Society and Culture

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