Abstract
This chapter uses community notification to examine the ways in which risk control in New Zealand, as in similar societies, drives a distinct strand of penal policy development. Community notification policy and practice has expanded across the advanced liberal democracies, far beyond the initial bounds set out in Megan’s Law in the United States in 1994. Using the case of New Zealand, where notification is not legislated, the chapter explores the way that communities are often informed about the presence of sex offenders in ad hoc and unpredictable ways, triggering a range of fear-based responses. Drawing from interviews with a range of leaders from communities who experienced de facto notification, the chapter considers whether the nuances of the community reaction, in particular the depth of insecurity and range of proposed ‘sensible’ solutions, are typical of lived experiences of risk control and regulation in neoliberal societies, and the way that they are becoming increasingly intolerant of risky individuals: those who threaten irreparable harm to vulnerable people.
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Notes
- 1.
See Brown v Attorney General of New Zealand.
- 2.
This number is contested: my interviewees consistently claimed that the number was sixteen, while the Department of Corrections publicly claimed the number was eleven.
- 3.
All of the community leaders I spoke to in Ōtāhuhu disputed this claim, though some were approached by the Department after the media had picked up the story.
- 4.
The fieldwork for my doctoral research included interviews of thirty-three community leaders across three New Zealand communities. I defined ‘community leaders’ as being either directly representative of a community subgroup, or as holders of a role as a spokesperson of some facet of the community. This included school principals, elected officials, NGO employees, journalists and representatives of community interest groups.
- 5.
The Deprivation Index is an integrated data set that draws together data on indicators including crime, education, healthcare, employment, housing and income.
- 6.
According to the Department of Corrections (2018: 10) themselves, the practice of accommodating sex offenders in motels ceased due to public concerns following media reports of a child sex offender residing in the same motel as children and families managed by the Ministry of Social Development (in lieu of social housing).
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Anderson, J. (2020). Dangerous Neighbors: Risk Control, Community Notification and Sex Offender Release. In: Pratt, J., Anderson, J. (eds) Criminal Justice, Risk and the Revolt against Uncertainty. Palgrave Studies in Risk, Crime and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37948-3_5
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